


This is No Life

by MiaCousland



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Campfires, Canonical Character Death, Confessions, Drunk mages, Escape, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/M, Free Marches (Dragon Age), Hangover, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kirkwall, Kirkwall Chantry, Lyrium, Mage Rebellion, Mage-Templar War, Mages and Templars, Magical Fighting, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Racism, Rum, Slavery, Slaves, Templars, Tevinter Imperium, The Gallows, pyres
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-08-19 08:12:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 49,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8197406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaCousland/pseuds/MiaCousland
Summary: Varric Tethras lied to Cassandra Pentaghast about a great many things, including what happened to Orsino, the First Enchanter.  He didn't succumb to blood magic but instead escaped before Meredith enacted the Rite of Annulment.  His quest now?  To find the man who set fire to the tinder box of Mage hatred in Thedas ...A Dragon Age reimagining.





	1. Chapter 1

Orsino had long stopped feeling warmth in his toes.  The ice-cool water of the tributary that would flow to the mighty Minanter trickled slowly over the rocks on which he stood, staring down his feet.  Smooth pebbles of obsidian black felt oddly comfortable under his bare soles and he slowly moved a toe against one, as if trying to study if it felt hard or mossy.  Diamond-white bubbles of air moved together, dancing as they caught the glints of moonlight, hinting at the danger of the rocks.  Always malevolent, always moving.  The corner of Orsino's lip rose haltingly at the irony but he felt the smile fall away from him almost instantly.  Feelings of mirth had no place in him now.  

Eventually he would have to move, of course, but for now the numbing of his feet was a relief.  They had walked since dawn that morning, stopping only for meals.  The Vimmarks were far behind them and no longer would they have to fight with the storms that had hounded them over the mountains.  A few of their number had fallen to the cold and out of the ten that had escaped Kirkwall, six still walked with him.  But four didn't, the demons called.  Four.  One had succumbed to injuries sustained as they fled, two had fallen to the cold, and the group had woken to a pile of ash in a clearing near to where they slept.  That one had hurt the most and Orsino fought to keep long buried memories asleep.  These mages - scared, angry, half-starved - were his responsibility.  Even more so than before.  In the Free Marches, where Templars guarded their cities, the threat of discovery for his small band of apostates was very real.

If he closed his eyes, he could smell the burning air in the madness that had been Kirkwall.  It wrenched him to leave but he had gathered the ten that he could.  When the word came from Varric, he had barely minutes in which to act.  Meredith was on her way with her retinue of Templar guards.  Hawke had made her decision and now Meredith would make the city burn because of it.  They had to go right then.  A pain in his mouth made Orsino realise that he had gritted his teeth in anger so hard, it was making his jaw ache.  How long would he relive these memories?

A rustle in the trees around him snapped his head up and magic leapt unbidden to swirl around a ready fist.  Silently it waited to be unleashed.  He let his fingers toy with it distractedly.  Orsino's breath came out in ghostly draughts but it was the only movement that he could see.  The dark under the branches of the trees that lined the beach called to him.  His mind sang lies to him: each shadow, a Templar come to claim him; each creaking branch, the snap of a bow.  His blood started to race next to his ears.

_... I can help you fight them ..._

No!  Orsino curled his body into a fighting stance.  He would not be taken.  Not now!  Not after everything he had fought for.  The crack of a branch brought a snarl to his mouth and his fingers flexed.  A figure emerged from the treeline and it was only the flash of a small, green-leather, hunting boot that stopped him unleashing an unholy inferno on the intruder.  It dropped to the floor and scrabbled backwards.  A metal bucket clattered across the pebbles.

"Maker!" cried a voice, shrill with panic.  Instantly the mask was dropped and the power dissipated into the river.  Wading across the water and out onto the small, shingle beach, he walked quickly over.  "Orsino?  What in Andraste's name were you doing!?"  
"Iselle, what are you doing here?" he asked, holding out a hand for her.

The petite mage took his hand and stood.  It trembled still.

"You were stood there, crouched and ready to kill me.  Your hands were wrapped in veil fire!  I thought you were a demon in the darkness!"  
Orsino stooped to pick the bucket up and on straightening, proffered it to her.  "I apologise.  I did not mean to scare you."  

The human stood partly obscured by the shadows as her wide eyes swept the open stretch of water in front of her.  Gently her rigid arms uncoiled and she looked up at him, but before saying a word, she took the bucket and went to the water.  Orsino watched her stoop to the surface and fill the bucket without making a sound.  Magic dampened the noise from the pebbles as she silently returned.  Evidently she had been spooked enough to switch on the magicks she had so carelessly forgotten.  Good.  They needed to be scared.   _We have to survive,_  he told himself.

"You should not be out here." she whispered sharply and turned to walk back into the forest.  

He bit back a retort but would draw her aside later.  For now, he would let it lie.  Drying his feet and pulling his boots on, he followed after her.  The forest was dark as they walked along the small path cut by the wildlife.  There was no way they could stick to the roads.  They had to move north but even the dirt tracks and tollroads would be frequented by more people than they would care to see.  Long ago they had ditched their magerobes for travelling clothes but a group of six was surely to draw attention.  Across country meant cutting across forests, plains, and around the occasional settlement.  Eventually they would have to come nearer to civilisation.  Wildervale town was drawing closer and that's where Varric's next cache would be, along with any intelligence on where  _he_ was.  Orsino refused to even acknowledge his name.

His fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms to try and strangle any screams of frustration he might have made.  The wildness that now burned Thedas and threatened to unseat the world had been caught by the tinderspark that had been the Kirkwall Chantry.  The sheer wanton  _madness_ of what that mage had done defied belief.  Because of him, they had all suffered the consequences.  Meredith had been on her way to enact the Rite of Annulment when Varric's plan had happened.  Even as she mounted the steps of the Gallows, Orsino was fleeing with those he could help.  Some mages stayed out of duty, some through blind fear, some to give Orsino and his group the time to escape.  Shame flooded him.  He should have stayed.  Maybe he could have done something, maybe talked Meredith out of it.  Orsino groaned into the silence of the forest at the futility of that thought.  Meredith had long been lost to madness.

Several minutes later, they returned to the campsite.  He could see straight away that Randall had curled up and gone to sleep.  From the deep and even breathing, he had been asleep a while.  A small fire burned inside a ring of stones and afforded a modicum of light.  The group worked very hard to remain hidden but warmth and light were too much of a necessity.  Orsino had relented and allowed a small fire to be made.  Magic could not be sustained whilst they were asleep, and if anyone was to stumble upon the group, a simple thing such as a fire would lend their story of being fugitives more credence.  After all, that's what they were.  Now they were above the Vimmarks, they could claim they were running from Cumberland to Starkhaven.  

Peter looked up from staring into the fire and threw an angry look to Orsino.  He was hungry - they all were - but in the dark, they could not afford to let the smell of cooking lure potential threats to where they were.  He only allowed them to cook during daylight hours so they could see if they were being hunted.  While it was dark, there was to be no cooking.  Peter's eyes disappeared to the fire with the sulkiness of a child.  Orsino sighed inside and began to rehearse the explanation again.  He could see that the boy was winding up for an argument.  But it didn't come and the silence around the fire spread to fill each of them.

Only Iselle moved.  The water that she had gathered was decantered into a boiling pan and hung low over the flames.  A simple cantrip for mages that had eaten recently, but not those who were wasting away.  Energy needed to be conserved.   _It would all be easier in Wildervale_ , came the mantra.  She sat down on the opposite side of the fire and the three of them fell to quiet.  A rattle in one of the pack bags produced tin mugs and a small box.  He knew what it contained and he wholeheartedly welcomed it.  The air was crisp but the fire was warm and it prickled his face.  Soon a cup of Rivaini tea was warming his hands too.  It stung against the iciness of his fingers but he didn't care.  

Iselle tried to start a conversation several times with Peter, only to be rebutted with grunts as the man stared into his cup.  Her eyebrows rose and fell sharply and she inhaled softly through her nose, staring down at her cup as her mouth pressed thin with irritation.  Another sideways glance at the sullen boy though.  This time softer.  The paternal side of him welcomed the chance for two of his charges to enjoy some kind of relationship, some kind of happiness, but he feared that it was not to be returned.  Misty eyes fell back decades and for a moment, all he could see was a wardrobe and a creaking door hanging open.  Snapping his eyes shut tightly, he fought to regain control.  After many years of doing so, it was second nature to him and the image quickly fell away.

"Orsino?"

He looked to see her looking back across the fire at him.

"Yes?"  
"Am I allowed to ask what you were thinking?"  
"No." he replied as the first beginnings of a soft, paternal smile moved his mouth.  She looked so desperate to join in conversation with him but he was in no mood to accommodate her tonight.  He took a draft of his tea.  "No, I'm afraid not."

No-one was allowed to know about that night from so long ago.   No-one.


	2. Chapter 2

Orsino was running.  Branches lashed his face as he pounded through the undergrowth, desperate to reach his charge.  Faster he flew, ducking a dense clump of hanging rashvine by the grace of the Maker.  Iselle's scream had pierced the valley's still air.  Alert immediately, he raced ever forward.  His heart pounded as he pushed further and cursed his age for slowing him down.  His ankles suddenly went from under him as his foot hit skree and he pitched backwards, slamming his shoulder and his head on the stones.  Pain coursed through him and his mind swirled momentarily as he forced himself to standing, clutching his head as he rose.  His fingers had blood all over them as he drew them forward to look.  Shouts shot through the wood and he set off towards it.  He could spare no time.

He didn't have to get very far before he felt the dreaded pull of magic.  He had to stop.  It could have been the dampening magic of Templars, but having them so far from the known paths would have been very unlikely.  Bandits, possibly.  Wooziness forced him to clutch onto a tree.  "No," he said more to himself than any other, "I must get to them."

Mercifully the growth under the spreading trees was sparser than at the top of the hills.  The canopy certainly stopped most of the sunlight getting in but it was in no way dark.  A clearing up ahead exploded with blues and golds, then reds.  Worry spread through his mind.  There was no way this burst of activity would go unnoticed.  Vainly he sought to use the magic inherent in him.  It was there but he could get no grasp on it!  Outright panic started to settle as he pushed off the tree and stumbled forward, desperate to get to his group.  His hand sought out the small, leather pouch on his belt.  Elfroot leaves that had been picked only minutes before were stuffed into his mouth and he started to chew quickly.  The menthol cleared his nose and punched a way through to his mind, clearing his thoughts a little.  It was only a temporary fix but it could be all he needed.

As he drew nearer, he could make out lithe and twisting figures sending out waves of arcane energy.  Randall and Garras danced around an ash wraith that clawed at the space that they were occupying, missing them by inches.  Orsino could feel the heat of the magic being used from here.  As he watched, it threw back its head and screamed into the sky malignant cries of frustration.  Peter lay face down on the far side, an arrow protuding from his upper arm and one from his knee.  He tried to push himself up and crawl towards the cover of the trees but the arrows were causing him obvious pain.  On the other side of the clearing Iselle threw fireball after fireball at two men in the robes of Tevinter mages, who dissipated the spells with ease.  She had never been taught to fight but she held them back, neither winning nor losing.  Skirting round the undergrowth, Orsino ran at a crouch to stop behind a bush near to where they fought.  As he waited for his opportunity, he drew a dagger from a small sheath on his belt.  His fingers trembled.  He had rarely killed by the sword before.  One false move and he would be finished, and thus any chance of survival for the rest of them.

He waited, his vision clearing enough to be able to see that one of the men had been dropped by Iselle.  She was backing the other towards where he hid.  

"Now, Orsino!" she cried.  

With a lunge forward, Orsino wrapped one arm round the assailant's shoulders and with the other, plunged the dagger down through the soft flesh of his throat and into his chest.  Warm blood immediately gushed all over his hand but he clung onto the knife, twisting it to ensure there would be no survival.  The attacker surged backwards in an attempt to throw off his unknown killer but he did not get far.  Orsino planted a foot and braced against the subsiding force of the dying man.  Slowly the attempts faded and Orsino guided him down to the floor as the man's legs scrabbled and kicked at the dirt.  Gargling accompanied them and as soon as he was sure that the man would die, Orsino dropped the knife quickly and looked to where the other two fought the wraith.  

Once again, he strove for his power.  The elfroot had worked its charms and he could tap into it at last.  Unsure as to how long that access would be, and still feeling remnants of wooziness in his head, he reached for it quickly.  Practiced patterns of movement drove his body and the magic swirled around his hands again.  His fingers ached to feel the three-headed staff he had been forced to leave in Kirkwall.  It would have been so much easier with it.  His body swung round and with a cry, his hand shot out and he loosed a wave of freezing energy towards the wraith.  It hit with a crash and the ice prison he had summoned wrapped quickly around the creature to hold it firm, the sounds of cracking ice ricocheting around the glade.  Swiftly, he twisted his body again and wrapped arcana around himself.  Thrusting out both hands, wrists touching but palms open, he shot a fist of stone from them.  It smashed against the frozen wraith and broke it into bright shower of shards.  With a howl, the monster disappeared as if being sucked through the Veil into the Fade.

Breathing hard, Orsino felt waves of pain pulsing through his head but he gritted his teeth against it.  They didn't know if they were alone yet.  He only had a few moments of peace before he could hear someone crashing through the wood and he braced himself for more fighting.  Seconds later, a man burst into the clearing but ran clear across it, chased by Derani who wore a look of fierce, mortal intent, her bow gripped tightly in her hand.  In one swift movement, she stopped, nocked an arrow, and loosed it.  It hit him in the leg and he fell forward, grabbing at his calf as he went.  Not giving him the time to cry out, Derani ran to him and released him into the afterlife with her dagger to his throat.  Panting, she stood up, radiating pride at the kill she had just made.

"Maybe we should just roast these filth instead of looking for Marcher pigs, Orsino." she grinned.

He ignored the bold statement as he pushed his way over to where Peter lay, still alive by the way he kept trying to push himself up.

"I'm okay." came the weak voice as Orsino dropped down next to him.  As he looked the injuries over, he heard the others run up.  Iselle skidded to a halt and dropped to the floor on the other side of the boy.  
"What shall we do?" she asked intently.

Derani was already at Peter's feet.  She held out an arrow she had picked up from the man she had killed.

"Bodkin arrows." she said as she threw that one aside and gripped the one sticking out of Peter's knee, "These are going to hurt coming out but we can handle the after-effects."  
"Wait!" Orsino said, his own hand holding the one in Peter's arm.  He winced at the pain it produced in his own shoulder but he kept his mouth firmly shut.  He would go through the agony.  "We do this altogether.  Randall, be on the lookout for others.  Iselle, Garras - you need to be healing him when these come out.  One, two, three!"

With a steady pull, Orsino drew out the arrow and calmly closed his other hand over the wound.  Peter screamed his pain into the ground.  For the second time inside ten minutes, someone's blood was pumping out over Orsino's fingers but, almost immediately, he could sense the soothing flow of magic that was knitting together the wound and causing the blood loss to stop.  Sending out a wave of his own to bolster the efforts of the other two, he listened keenly for signs of improvement.  He was pleased when Peter's breathing became steadier.  Finally the holes were closed and aside from bruising and a small scar, the skin was perfect.  Peter gingerly managed to sit up.

"Tha ... thank you." he wheezed.  A smile of relief spread across Orsino's face as he watched the boy intently.  He swayed a little but managed to stay upright.  He turned to the rest of them, his hand still firmly on Peter's shoulder.  
"What happened?" 

Garras started talking first.

"Derani and I were following the summer berry bushes down the hill like you told us to, got talking and kind of ... stumbled upon ... "  
"Well, we stumbled upon that, Orsino." the elf said, throwing her hand out emphatically.

A gasp escaped his mouth as he followed the line of the hand to see where she pointed.  His legs pushed him to standing but seemed to not want to move as he just stared.  A sheer wall of granite, three times the height he was, made up one wall of the clearing.  Ivy twisted round and hung on the imperfections, and pockets of Prophet's Laurel peppered the ground at the base.  An alcove had been carved into the rock and on it, a faded picture of a red dragon could be seen painted on the wall of the alcove.  In the middle, perhaps most malevolently of all, was a small, stone pedestal with a wide bowl perched on top.  Books after books, streams of information, heraldry studies, rune studies; all these pointed to one thing.  Tevinter.

"The people were here ... praying, I think?  We must have made too much noise for them." Garras explained.  
"Three people?  So small a number." Orsino mused quietly.  
"And so bold.  If they think that they can travel and be so unguarded."

He was almost afraid to disturb the ground.  His fingertips ran gently over the runes, long since eroded by weather and time.

"Orsino, stop!" called Iselle, a trill of panic in her voice.  "What has happened to your head!?"  
"Never mind my head." he said absently, "This ... this is Tevene.  Ancient, in fact."    
"Tevinter?  Here?" Garras asked, his head whipping around to look for more intruders.  He was spooked by the news, obviously fearing the mere name would evoke spirits to draw forth.

Orsino let his eyes draw upwards, taking in the majesty of the site, even if he felt a cold shiver at the arrogance of the mages who would travel to the place.  He knew what the runes would have been and what they would have said in times gone passed.  That magic was beyond him, not through talent but through choice.  He became morose as he thought back over all the pain that had torn through the Gallows because of blood magic.  He knew that some of his fellow mages would eventually turn to it, but it still pained him to know the fate that had become of them because of it.  To all of them.  Orsino turned back to the group and picked up his bags where he'd dropped them before the fight.  

"We need to go." he called out.  "Gather your things, and whatever food you can quickly forage.  If this is a Tevinter pilgrimage site, then they will be back.  We need to be far away from here.  Especially if blood has been spilled.  Anyone arriving will know it was the work of mages." he told them as he pointed out the scorch marks from the fireballs.   
"Is there anything to be learned from this place?" Derani called out from across the glade.

He shook his head.  Maybe if they waited for more pilgrims to turn up.  However, if they were accommodating enough not to kill them on site, they would either sell them to the nearest Templars or conscript them into the ways of the Imperium.  Wild tales of the arrogance of their mages spun across Thedas.  Wide eyes would listen to far-fetched stories in the dormitories of his youth but that was before he heard of the darkness of their egos.  Still, as he looked over the small altar, he couldn't help but feel the slight tremblings of jealousy at their freedom to practice magic.  With a small sigh through his nose, he turned and walked back to where he had dropped his bags.

"We need to leave, before anyone else arrives."  
"What?  Wait, Orsino!" Iselle still calling after him.  Annoyance ripped through him as her hand caught his arm.  She clucked and fussed over all of them as if their mother.  He was more than twenty years older than her.  "Your head is badly cut.  We need to heal that first!"

"No, Iselle.  We need to leave." he snapped.  His eyes closed with regret at the tone.  
"Orsino, she's right.  There's a massive gash across the back.  It's still bleeding, and it's all matted." Randall softly spoke.  "Please, a few minutes will not harm us."

He turned round to face the two of them, his mouth set with irritation but his mind swimming at the pain.  He knew they meant well but they were children.  Iselle was barely twenty, Randall a little more.  His eyes flicked to where Peter still sat on the floor with Derani and Garras. 

"We're allowed to look after you, too." came the soft words from Iselle.

He felt his eyes soften a little.  He had been pushing them so hard to escape far from Kirkwall.  Fear that he would fail to keep them safe kept him awake at night with anxious thoughts.  However, they would be alone in the world if he did not stand up for them.  The chains of being First Enchanter had followed him out of the Gallows.  They needed him, and they needed him alive.  With a look at the two of them that made his annoyance quite clear, yet with warming eyes, he sat down on a nearby rock.

"Fine.  Fix me."


	3. Chapter 3

As they walked cautiously among the buildings of what they could only assume was Wildervale Town, the group were very much on guard.  All around them the smouldering wooden carcasses of once-proud homes were testament to recent assault.  It made Orsino's fingers itch with worry but he kept the magic at bay.  The cloying wood smoke caught in the throat and made his eyes water slightly.  Derani had already wrapped a scarf around her nose and mouth, prompting a few of the others to follow her lead and do the same.  From the number of buildings still standing, it looked to be a small town.  Twenty buildings - maybe less - and all spread out from each other.  There were broken piles of burned wood everywhere, indicating where a house could have been, and patches of destroyed vegetation where a garden would have once stood.    There appeared to be no flames either.  Whoever had done this had been gone for a while, yet from the smoke rising to meet the breeze, not long enough.

It was also silent.  Orsino would have expected there to be townsfolk active in the rescue of their own, or tending to the wounded, but there were none.  He listened carefully but all he could hear was the breeze that came over the nearby lake.  Occasionally a burned out frame would crash down, finally surrendering to demolition.  No, he could hear no signs of life save the group that travelled beside him.  No animals, either, and that made him extremely nervous.  However, from the itch on his neck, he could feel that they were being watched.  There was no magic involved, just a sixth sense that he had always nurtured.  It had served him well in the alienage of Ansburg, it had served him well growing up into maturity in the Gallows, and he was sure it was doing the same now.  

"Keep a wary eye out.  I think someone is here." he murmured to the group.  
"Where?" Garras growled in a low voice.  
"I don't know."

They had seen the smoke stacks as they had crested a nearby hill, rising to create huge drifts of white that covered the countryside.  Appalled, Orsino had made them wait until they could be sure whoever had set the inferno going was gone.  For hours they watched keenly for any signs of life but there were none.  When he was sure they would be safe, he gave the signal to walk down into the town.  He needed to know what Varric had left him.  All he had said was that the stash would be in Wildervale Town.  He had given them a code word as well but the more Orsino thought about it, and stared at the skeleton of the town around him, the more he became convinced that Varric had made it up.

"I can't see any evidence of magecraft here, Orsino." Iselle told him.  "This was either a militia or bandits.  Either way, we have to be careful."  
"Open your eyes, Iselle." Derani snapped.  "This was the work of the Templars.  There are hoof marks and piles of horse shit everywhere.  See how the roads are churned up.  I know of no bandit group large enough for such an army." Her words ended as her jaw clamped shut in a growl.  
"And you have been in touch with much of the world since you've been in the Gallows?" Orsino asked skeptically.  Her presence and heated debate had always fascinated him in the Circle, and he had liked that her talks had always kept him on his toes, but there was an edge to her.  He hadn't liked the way she had just taken a swipe at Iselle, and she glanced around the ruins of the town with a dark glint in her eye.  
"No, but Tantervale is seventy miles from here." she continued.  "That city lives and dies by the Chantry.  With good roads, their iron grip could rule the surrounding countryside for miles."  
"That doesn't explain the utter destruction here though, Derani." Peter added quietly.  "This is barbarity.  Even for Templars."  
"This was a message.  There's no other explanation for it." Orsino muttered, his own voice growing menacingly quiet.

The scent of carrion was growing stronger.  Rounding a corner, the road widened almost immediately into what would have been a town square.  No longer the place of happy markets, or town meetings, this had been the place of a brutal suppression.  Orsino resisted the urge to run forward when he saw bodies slumped against the fountain in the centre.  Blood mixed with the dirt to produce a brown sludge that covered the cobbles.  More lay where they had fallen.  Here and there, the stones of the square were blackened where flames had consumed a person.  Townsfolk littered the cobbles like leaves in an autumnal drift.  Standing guard over the corpses were two sturdy buildings whose roofs had been consumed by fire, empty and blackened fingers stretching out to the smoke-riddled sky.  One, he assumed was the town tavern, from the smashed-up ruins of barrels strewn about in front it.  The other was perhaps the mayor's house.  The town wasn't prominent enough to have a town hall but a central building such as the one they stood next to would certainly house someone important.  Only the lower couple of feet of wall still stood.  Flame-licked stones and a burned out wooden frame spoke loudly as to how this building had been especially targeted.  

The shadows in the large tavern opposite were small as well but they were there.  Large piles of the stones that had previously been the walls had fallen down, cascading out into the street through the doorway.  His eyes could not tear away from the entrance way.

"Can anyone else see or hear anything?" he asked cautiously as he glanced around.  
"This town is dead, Orsino." Peter spoke, a tinge of sadness in his voice.  "There is no-one here save ghosts."  
"Then I am going to investigate the building across the way.  The rest of you - search the bodies for either survivors, or useful information."

There was a general murmur of assent as the five of them split into smaller groups and moved among the bodies.  He approached the shell cautiously, taking care to appreciate the myriad of ways this was a bad plan; the carcass of the building could fall on top of him, he could surprise a survivor and provoke an emotional attack, he could find more corpses, perhaps children.  One half of the roof had more of the rafters than the other and it managed to somehow throw shade on the inside.  Gravel and debris crunched underfoot and made him wince.  If he wished to surprise anyone lurking within, the grit under his shoes was announcing his proximity quite loudly.  A whisper to his feet silenced the noise produced and he admonished himself for not remembering it sooner.  

The threshold was breached and he stepped over the pile of rocks that had spilled into the street.  It would have been a room large enough for fifty revellers but now half was buried under the remains of the roof and the walls.  Some tables survived but these were soiled with the embers of the building around it.  Orsino's ears caught the slightest noise from the far wall and at once his eyes flew to see if there was danger.  He could see none.  There sat a table that had been turned on its side and removed to sit against the far wall, so positioned so the flat would provide a hiding space.  His heart rate started to climb.  It was not large enough to hold a fighter, and surely they would have attacked by now in defence of what remained of their town.  That did not stop the danger though.  He should have stopped and retreated to find his group but what would happen if the incumbent of the shadows fled, robbing them of their only lead?  He pressed on.  Slowly rounding the end of the hiding space, he saw a boy child shivering with fear.  In an outstretched hand, held to defend himself, trembled a rusty knife.  Tears flowed from the boy's panic-stricken eyes.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Orsino whispered calmly.  Even as he moved forward a little in an attempt at rescue, the boy scrabbled backwards further into his retreat, his weapon still nobly held out in defence.  A momentary widening of the eyes and a significant squeal caused Orsino to back away slightly.  The palm the boy had been leaning on was swiftly buried under his other arm in a primal display of pain.  He was even more weakened but still he held that knife.  Orsino backed slowly away to sit against a nearby wall, visible to the boy but far enough to not trap him.  This was a caged child who had seen trauma.  If he wanted to run, that was only right and natural.  Orsino would not stop him.  He hugged his knees and waited.  A shadow fell on him from the door.  

"Orsino, is everything alright?" Garras asked.  Orsino nodded but threw a look to the space behind the table, hidden from Garras' viewpoint.  The man gripped his sword a little tighter in response, lifting it slightly in a search for reassurance.  Orsino shook his head and smiled patiently.  He hoped Garras would get the message.  With a meaningful bob of his head, the man retreated from the doorway.  Orsino could hear the murmurs of low voices and he was sure the message was being passed on.  He would wait for this child to become ready to emerge.  Minutes ticked by and slowly the knife came down, but the child refused to come out.  There was still that same level of fear that seemed to be holding him together.  However, maybe it was more simple than anything else.

He called for whoever was nearby and Iselle appeared at the door.

"How is everything?" she asked, her voice loaded with concern.  
"Everything is fine but I was wondering if there was any spare food, or water?"  
"Of course.  I have some here in my bag if there is some kind of need?"  With a silent nod, and a wave of his hand, he beckoned her forward.  Gingerly she walked over, creeping forward as if afraid to disturb even the very spiders.  Orsino kept a wary eye on the boy who skittered away backwards as he heard new noises coming forward.  From the rise and fall of his chest, he was getting increasingly agitated, until finally his eyes fell upon the young woman who had arrived.

"Orsino, move." she commanded respectfully after a moment.  Her eyes had locked with the boy and she seemed to have formed an instant connection.  Orsino obeyed.  Moving carefully away, he watched as she knelt down and hold out her arms.  With a whimper, and without even waiting, the boy scrambled up and rushed into them.  His head was promptly buried into her neck and Orsino could hear the bawls of pent-up fear as his skinny frame wracked up and down.  Iselle hushed and hugged him, running her hands up and down his back.  Slowly the boy's sobs grew quieter and less fierce.  He slunk sideways into her embrace and from the encircled arms, stared at Orsino.  He felt very exposed at the young lad's intense gaze.  Orsino shuffled uncomfortably.  The boy's eyes spoke of fear but he had done nothing to the lad.  Only soft words had been spoken, no threatening movements, a relaxed and patient demeanour.  What had he done wrong?  The young boy turned and murmured something to Iselle, inaudible to Orsino.

"There's nothing wrong with his ears." she replied quietly, looking up and smiling patiently at the First Enchanter.

Orsino had so long buried that part of his identity that it was brutal how the realisation of what the boy had been afraid of punched through to his mind.  All of a sudden, his ears felt hot and his cheeks flushed.  He hadn't felt that way since the days in the Ansburg alienage, and thirty-five years later, it was as if nothing had changed.  There was still the same sinking feeling in his stomach, the same cold sweat breaking out that his birth right was about to land him in trouble.  This child didn't appear to have the power to wield the same mortal result as those he had faced in those dreaded memories, but his eyes still searched out that that made him different; the physical attributes of the Elvhen.

"Have you never seen an elf, little one?" Iselle asked softly.  The boy shook his head.  "Well, then.  This man here is called Orsino.  You do not need to be afraid of him.  Yes, he is an elf but it is only one of the things that defines him.  He is very clever.  He knows things that only the great scholars of the bards tales would know; like how to bewitch dragons, and how to get rid of all the imps under your bed, and how to conjure lemon pudding in the middle of the night." The boy giggled at the wondrous hush with which she spoke.  "He is very loyal to those he cares about.  Extremely so.  But you have to remember," she said to the boy, pausing to look up at the First Enchanter, "and perhaps most importantly of all, he is a _kind_ man.  He looks after those who are hurt and scared.  He stands up for those whom others are hurting.  He ... he rescues people."  She turned away and rocked the boy, possibly not even knowing she was looking deep into memories that still haunted her.

Orsino was struck silent.  Discomfort played with his mind, causing all the inner demons to jar angrily with a burgeoning pride.  He was not used to such praise.  It had been scantly used in the Circle, and never outside of it except by Hawke.  He had always just tried to survive, and help others survive.  There was little indication that he had meant so much to anyone.  It made him feel warm, yet at the same time a little embarrassed.  There wasn't much he could say back to her and he sat down wondering what to do.  The noise had made her turn to him and as he caught her eye, he gave a confused smile of acknowledgement.  She held his eye and returned the smile, except that it was genuine, and warm, and full of gratitude.  

She broke away to retrieve some food for the boy and he ate it hungrily.  It was devoured and greedily he asked for more, which was duly given.  

"He has a delight for hedge berries." Orsino mused lightly.  Iselle smiled happily as she glanced down at the boy.  
"What is your name, little one?"  
"Bren." came the small voice in between mouthfuls of food.    
"When you are ready, may we talk to you please?" Orsino asked gently.  Bren stopped chewing for a moment, looked to Orsino's ears, and returned to his food.  He nodded briefly.  The boy's apprehension about the Elvhen would not be swiftly undone by cuddles.  
"If you want to ask me about what happened, I do not know." came a quietly determined voice.  "Our pig was hunting for truffles in the forest.  Tantervale prizes them and pays good money so I was gone all day.  As I returned, I saw the flames leaping out against the evening sky.  I was ... confused so I hid." came the subdued explanation.  He looked up at Iselle, almost asking for forgiveness.  
"It is good that you did, or you would not be here to talk to us." Iselle spoke seriously to her charge.  "Do not be ashamed of hiding."  
"I watched the next morning but they had all left."  
"Did you see anyone at all?"  
"No.  No-one.  I looked for my parents but they are gone.  We live here, in this tavern.  They would find me here so I have to stay."  He fell silent but began to sink further into Iselle's arms.  She mouthed that he was shaking.  "They might be outside but I didn't look.  I'm sorry, I should have looked!"  
"No, child, you shouldn't have." Orsino said quickly, sensing the child was about to cry.  "Whoever did this has made scenes that are not meant for your eyes."  Someone appeared at the door and he blinked against the sunlight to see Peter.  His face looked worried and he beckoned Orsino to come outside.  "Bren, I need to speak to my friend.  Iselle, the lady who is holding you, will stay right here.  Is that okay?"

Waiting for the nod, he swiftly rose and walked outside.

"Templars, Orsino.  That's who did this.  We need to leave." came the immediate information.  
"How do you know this?" he replied.  Even the word had immediately made him cautious and he felt his heart beat a little faster.  His well-honed sense of survival was strengthening him but also stoking the worry.  
"Derani has found a Templar issue sword among the bodies here, and Garras followed the horse tracks a little.  He found this insignia buried in the mud."

Peter dropped the token into Orsino's hand.

"This is the mark of the Lord Chancellor." he muttered in a low voice.  "This is serious.  Templars and guards working together.  They must have feared something very bad."  
"Like us?" came the dark and quiet reply.

Orsino met the look of his charge and shared his concern.  If Templars were involved, they would have suspected mages were in the area.  Apostates.  A shiver ran down Orsino's back.  They needed to retreat to safety but Varric's information would lead ever onward towards finding that _thing_ they were searching for.

"We came to this town for a reason.  I cannot leave before I find out answers."  
"But Orsino ..."  
"I mean it, Peter.  We cannot leave yet.  Soon, I promise, but not yet."  The young man inhaled his anger sharply through his nose, yet kept silent.  "Have the others watch the main roads into the town if they are finished looking for what we can scavenge.  I need to finish a conversation in here."  
"Is it true there is a survivor?" Peter questioned as he leant back and glanced into the ruins of the tavern.  
"Yes, and he is fragile.  No-one is to disturb us unless it is vital." he almost growled protectively.  It surprised him that he had grown so paternal to the lad so quickly.  Peter looked taken aback but kept his tongue.  Orsino softened and his shoulders fell a little.  As the man walked away, he called out.  "Thank you, Peter.  For the information." 

A subtle turn of the head towards where he stood at the tavern door was all the reply he received.  Sighing internally, he stepped back through into the cocoon that Bren needed, and sat down once again.  He smiled quietly at the boy who by now was sitting on the floor, though still only inches from Iselle and holding her hand firmly.  He kept looking at the room that had once been his home with quiet confusion.  He stared at the walls and the tables as the realisation slowly dawned on him that this shell was the same place it had been a few days previously.

"Bren, I need to ask you something about the people that lived here.  I came to this town looking for information that a friend of mine was supposed to have left.  How well did you know the people in the town?"  Orsino recieved a rebuking stare from Iselle almost straight away.  She flicked her eyes to the door and he realised.  "I'm sorry, Bren.  I really am but does the word 'scales' mean anything to you?"  
"What?" Iselle questioned as her brow furrowed with disbelief.  "Is that a person?  A thing?"  
"Scales was the name of the fisherman." Bren looked up and told her.  "Well, his nickname anyway."  Orsino sat up straighter at the news that he wasn't going mad, and Varric hadn't lied to him.  
"Where would I find him?"  
"I ... don't think he'll be around any more.  I don't think anyone is."  He stared at the hands in his lap as he spoke very quietly.

Orsino ran his hands back over his head as irritation wrankled him.  He was so close to the next step of this journey.  Iselle rubbed her hand across the Bren's shoulders who by now had more tears quietly falling down his face.

"Does Scales have a hut or a home we could at least look in?" he begged.  
"Orsino, please.  The homes here are destroyed." came the rebuke from Iselle.  He looked to see her open admonishment.  
"I think Scales had some kind of place on the other side of the lake.  He liked his privacy.  It's only a small place though.  Papa knows about it, and visits sometimes."  
"Is there a road?"  
"Yes, one that winds around the lake.  I can show you, I suppose."  
"And then where will you go?" Orsino asked.  Iselle's gaze intensified at the question.  
"I ... don't know.  I think we have friends in Starkhaven." he replied gloomily.  "I guess I'll go there.  Unless ... I could come with you?"

There was a silent pleading from Iselle that he could feel but didn't dare look at.  Orsino knew that they _couldn't_ look after the boy.  If they were caught, they would be either imprisoned in a new Circle somewhere, or summarily executed for being apostates.  The lad wouldn't survive after they had been dealt with.  The only hope was that somewhere in the surrounding countryside were more survivors that had fled into the hills and escaped the incoming horde of death.

"Bren, is there anywhere near here that the townsfolk run to in times of emergency?  Any cave system?  Anything?"  The only reply he received was a silent shake of the head.    
"I know of nothing like that, sorry."  
"Are there farmers in the hills near here?"  
"Yes, I think so."  
"Where did your father get his goods from?"  
"Carts came weekly from Tantervale, and occasionally a boat from Starkhaven - with the fancy things."  
"How often was that?"  
"Once a month."

Orsino took a few moments to calm the frustration that was building inside him.  For all his problems, there was a path that they could take.  He had a next step; the hut on the other side of the lake.  If nothing was there, they would face that problem when it arose.  There was simply no more could be done than that.  The child would be difficult to deal with but not impossible.  Orsino was sure that Varric's next lead would take them into a city, where there would be a place for him.  Indeed, he had just said that there may be somewhere for him in Starkhaven.  That city seemed the sensible choice to head towards next.  Where else could that mage so easily hide?  If he was travelling the wilds of the Free Marches, he could tip into Antiva and onto Rivain, or head the other way and take the paths across the Silent Plains, and through Nevarra.  In Orsino's heart though, there was only one place a free mage would go, and he shivered to think about it.

Thedas was open to him, so why was Orsino sure that Anders was heading to Tevinter?


	4. Chapter 4

The path round the lake was surprisingly beautiful.  Large rocks to begin with made the going a little slow but these were a diversionary tactic only.  It would have been impossible to scramble over them in armour or with horses, and they were hidden unless shown the way.  Once the group had climbed up and down these large boulders, the path opened out nicely and the late summer afternoon made the going fairly pleasant.  On one side, Nevarran ash trees lined the path and their wide, full branches provided a soothing shade against an unusual heat for so late in the day.  On the other, the lake gently lapped at a small shingle bank, peppered in small bushes that drank deeply from the cool water.  Water plants stuck out from the small waves that blew with the breeze and occasionally spindleweed poked its head above the water.  Orsino picked the first five bunches carefully but he soon saw the abundance and left the rest for others.  He returned to enjoying the view.  A tree trunk sticking almost sideways out of the water caught his eye and he wondered at the circumstances that had caused that young sapling to grow at such a strange angle.

It was late Kingsway and the weather was temperate usually, except for these few hours when it was warm enough to take his travelling coat off and hold it over his arm.  Being on a path that was unknown to most even in the village, let alone to the Templars, meant relative safety.  It seemed to produce a state of almost euphoria for his group.  The geography of the lake meant that the thick trees muffled any sound on one side and on the other, the lake carried the tones to the far bank anyway.  The weather was lovely, they felt a modicum of safety, and consequently Orsino heard that most precious of sounds; laughter.  His heart lifted at the sounds behind him as Derani and Garras shared a joke.  Randall and Peter soon joined in the mirth and when Orsino glanced behind, the smiles on the faces of his charges made his own mouth break into a small grin.  He watched the path ahead where Bren led Iselle, talking to her all the time, never letting go of her hand.  She was making constant attempts to distract him with questions about the flora and fauna of the woods around them and from his answers, he was quite the budding woodsman.  When the answers drifted to the town behind them and the pain that she wanted him to avoid, she was skilled enough to then play a make-believe game with him.  He didn't smile but Orsino didn't see any tears on the walk.

It took three hours, and a short break for the boy, to reach the hut.  Orsino asked Bren to let them know when they were nearly there.  As tranquil as the walk had been, there was always the possibility for danger.  He had been listening out for anything dangerous for the entire walk but hadn't heard anything.  Bren stopped at the top of a slight incline that ran down to a small beach, allowing the group to quickly appraise the situation.  The hut was fairly ramshackle.  Weather beaten boards were in place of a roof, and the walls were patched up with different types of wood.  It had the impression that it had survived endless weather.  The cliff it was backed up against was covered in an ivy that Orsino had seen much of in this part of the Free Marches, but his keen eye for herbs spotted a few branches of Ghouls Beard halfway up the face.

The door to the hut swung open violently to smack the wall, and out walked a wild animal of a man of roughly Orsino's age.  His forearms were bare and muscular, and in one arm swung a large metal pipe.  His eyes glared up at them through thick, wild hair.  Orsino immediately moved to shield the boy and his charges.  The man's body seemed to swell in size as his meaty eyes stared down the mage.

"Stay there, you bunch of cow-humping bastards!" he roared, waving the pipe in their direction.  "Come here, and I  _will_ kill you!"  
"We only came to talk." Orsino called back quickly, holding out his hands in peace, at the same time Bren shouted down to him.  
"Scales!" 

The boy darted out from Iselle's grasp, wriggling away from her, and before Orsino could grasp him, had shot past and ran down the path towards the man.

"Bren!" cried the man in miserable shock, his eyes widening as he watched the boy run towards him.  The pipe fell to the floor as he dropped to his knees and pulled the boy into a tight hug.  The bear in him melted as he held the little lad from the town across the lake.  Orsino caught the sounds of Bren's heart breaking again as the familiar allowed his emotions to run out of him in torrents.  He watched as the man caught Bren's face in his spade-like hands and talked to him in hushed tones, his own eyes red with raw pain.  The door opened a second time and a woman ran out, dropping onto her knees and burying the two of them in an embrace.

After a few minutes, Bren pulled back and turned to where the group stood, wiping his nose with his sleeve.  The large man looked up at them as Bren spoke and eventually he stood up to judge them.  He stood with his mighty arms crossed, not quite wanting them to come nearer but trusting in the small boy to his side.  With a grunt, he nodded down to Bren, who waved them down nervously.

"I will lead," Orsino told them, "and no magic."

He could hear murmurs of discontent as he led his group slowly down the path and towards the large man who still regarded them as shit-covered nugs he would happily crush.  Slowly the man bent down to retrieve the pipe from the ground, keeping his eyes locked with Orsino.  A growl never left the man's lip.

"Good afternoon." Orsino said politely.  He knew that if pushed, the man would be cinders in a few moments.  However, if that happened, the information from Varric would be lost forever.  He needed to play this cautiously.  He could only hope that the others would follow his lead.  The fisherman regarded him quietly but nodded his head slowly.  His hand gripped Bren protectively and the little boy clung to his side, his arms wrapped round those large legs.  Bren looked at Orsino and Iselle with wide, red eyes from his haven.  "We have travelled a long way.  We had nothing to do with what has befallen your town!  Please believe us!"

Scales regarded them from behind emotionally exhausted eyes, but ones that would erupt if pushed.  He teetered on the edge of violence and rage, but what he had seen flashed across his face.  The woman stood just behind him and stared at the group with open fear.  Orsino knew that what they must have seen become of their friends would have pushed anyone past madness.  Quite rightly they distrusted any strangers who appeared in the skeleton of their home town.  He feel ripples of frustration start to flutter at the edge of his mind.  How would they get past this naked apprehension?

"Is your name Scales?  I was told I to come to Wildervale town and meet you."  
"By who?"  
"A dwarf called Varric."

At the mention of the name, the woman looked sharply towards Scales, who turned slightly to look at her.  A look passed between them and Orsino could only interpret it as whether to trust him or not.  He watched as their mouths moved and words spoken almost silently flew between them.  Impassioned looks, raised eyebrows, hand gestures; all of these made a rising tide of doubt and fear start to swirl inside of him.

"Stay here." he whispered to the group.

With a swallow to cover the nerves he was feeling, he started walking slowly forward.  At this sight, the fisherman jumped slightly and gripped the pipe tighter.

"Scales, please listen to me.  I have pushed my group far beyond what is rational in order to reach you here.  They are starving.  Every day I see that, and it's killing me."  Orsino glanced behind at his band of apostates.  Maybe it was the emotion of the moment that he had reached his destination, but as he looked at them, he could feel his heart break at how malnourished and exhausted they looked.  It was like he was seeing them anew and he knew he was failing them.  "Now, I trust Varric and I can see from your reactions that you know him.  This means you know that someone would be here to collect a cache of supplies.  He told us to come here, to you, and that he would leave a package here for us, possibly only a letter.  Now, if you don't know what we're here for then we'll go.  But in Andraste's name, _please_ , just let us know if you have that information from Varric."

Scales reclined his head slightly and Orsino could see that his face was warming.

"My name is Olyver." he lied, using the name he had convinced the group to use on encountering others.  "Please, help us."

It was a major gamble.  Scales could turn round, deny all knowledge of the missive from Varric, and tell the Templars in Tantervale that a group of apostates were in the area.  Likely they would be dead by morning, or conscripted into the Circle there.  Scales folded his arms and regarded them with the look of a man weighing up many options.  He may have been a great hulk of a man, but he was evidently a smart one.  Instead of rushing into things, he was appraising the threat each of them held.  After a few moments, he started talking.

"Varric has sent a parcel for you, but it's only small.  I can help you out with other things.  I owe him.  Now, evidently, we're equal."  
"You will help us then, Scales?"  
"Of course."  He stepped forward quickly to Orsino with an open hand.  The mage took it and shook heartily.  "And it's John.  Scales is only my nickname.  Come down, the rest of you!  We will be friends from here on in.  I have more reason to be scared of you than you of me."  
"You know what we are then?" Orsino asked quickly, feeling more panic than before.  
"Varric sent me a letter too." he said as he turned and walked back to the hut.  "He never said explicitly.  Only that he was sending people to me from Kirkwall.  Now, from what I hear of that place, it has broken down completely."  
"We left it nearly a month ago and have no news of it since.  Anything you can tell us would be most helpful."  
"I'll let Varric explain it.  The man has always had a better way with words than I have." 

Orsino burst out laughing but quickly stifled it as he walked into the hut behind the fisherman.  The weariness seemed to leave Orsino as he stepped through into the room beyond.  The kitchen was warm, and smelled of hearty food.  A fireplace to one side held a stove and from there the smell of baking floated over to them.  What it was was not important to the hungry and Orsino felt his stomach growl at the prospect of something to eat.

"Elinor, serve some food to these people!  They are wasting away.  I will fetch some bacon from the pantry."  He disappeared through a doorway and Orsino could hear him moving around further along in the house.  
"Please sit down." the woman said as she appeared from behind them, calmly pushing through.  Now all of them were in the hut it seemed cosier than before but to the weakened travellers, it was as near to paradise as they could get.  "You must be so hungry.  Sit, please!" she ordered.

The large table could only seat a few people but four squeezed onto the bench behind it.  More chairs were produced, all mismatched and pitted.  Between putting a large copper kettle on the fire, and cleaning the table, and producing more chairs from other rooms, the woman bustled round all of them.  Bren climbed up onto Iselle's lap and cuddled into her while watching the food come together.  Bread was pulled from the oven and placed on the table.  John soon returned from the far reaches of the hut and sat on a stool next to the oven, pulling a pan down from a nearby hook and putting it on the metal hotplate.  Soon, the sizzling and crackling of bacon was making them all hungry.  Mismatched plates were distributed, along with battered cups, and before long the table was set for a feast.  Cheeses, bowls of apples and tomatoes, nuts, fresh bread with soft butter, berries; these all sat before them.  Orsino held in the gratitude he had not felt for a long time, but as he looked at the hungry faces of the mages around him, he couldn't help but smile at their shock.

"What are they waiting for?" Elinor asked Orsino.  "Eat, please!" she cried as she went to get the kettle.  There was a momentary pause before Derani broke the silence and started piling food onto her plate with a gusto.  The others followed her lead and after an initial cacophony of excited chatter, the food was being gorged on and all fell silent.  When his charges had taken their share, Orsino pulled some bread onto his plate and after spreading it with the wonderful yellow butter, took a few moments to enjoy the simple pleasure of food.  He could not remember the last time he had eaten bread.  They had cooked stews, or roasted meat, or foraged for foods that woods could supply.  This was luxury.  Cups of hot tea were passed round and they drank heartily.  John placed a mound of bacon in the centre of the table and hands were taking meat off of it before the plate had been fully set down.  Elinor and John pulled more chairs to the crowded table and for a while, nobody spoke.  When satiety had taken Orsino, he sat back in his chair and sipped his tea.  By and by, more of them sat back in their chairs and wore smiles of victory over the plain but wonderful food.  Bren still ate but even he was waning.  Elinor rose to fill everyone's cups again.  She whirled around her kitchen, clearing plates and refusing offers of help.

Almost as soon as they had finished, Orsino noticed that Peter's head was beginning to nod and his eyes were drooping.  Randall had already leaned his head against the wall and was falling asleep.  Derani had leaned her head against Garras' shoulder and was smiling happily.  The two chatted quietly to themselves in murmurs of sweet intimacy.  Orsino looked to where Iselle cradled Bren, a maternal smile curling her mouth.  The warm kitchen and good food, along with the feelings of safety, were causing the group to relax in a way they hadn't done since leaving Kirkwall.

"I think your friends will be asleep before too long, Olyver." John joked quietly as he drank from his cup.  
"They have been walking for a long time." he replied, conscious of what they had had to go through to get to this moment.  
"You look exhausted yourself."  
"I will stay the sleep for a while longer." Orsino answered, a tinge of sadness creeping into his voice.  "Thank you both for the food.  You have no idea what this means to us."  
"Life, I suppose." John smiled.  A tired smile lifted the corner of Orsino's mouth as he stared into his cup.  Now that he was fed, warm, and resting, melancholy was threatening to take him.  Shaking himself out of it, he drank the rest of his tea and set his cup down.  He looked up at John and forced himself to smile.  
"I suppose you'd like what you came for." came the earnest response.

Orsino nodded his head.  The large fisherman rose and went once again to another room in the small hut.  A few moments later, a small parcel and a note was placed on the table in front of him.  Orsino could feel his heart beat a little faster.  There wouldn't be the final answers that he was searching for in this little carton but the threat of failure would be staved off for a while.  His fingers reached for the parcel first and gently he undid the string.  As the paper was undone, he saw a small bag of black velvet.  Picking it up, the clink of glass made a quiet but distinctly piercing sound.  In the quiet of the kitchen, it caught in his ears.  Indeed others looked over to see what it was.  Why would Varric have sent him glass?  Unless ...  No, it _couldn't_ be.  There was no way it could be that.  Could it?  Orsino's palms grew clammy.  He put his hand into the bag and as his fingers curled round a small glass phial, his eyes closed with hope.  His hands were trembling and he withdrew his hand and opened his fingers.

It was.  His phylactery.  

Orsino let out a low breath through shaking lips.  He set the small bottle on the table and stared at it, hardly daring to believe that he was seeing what was in front of him.  

"Is that ... ?" Iselle asked, sitting forward, her eyes bright.  

The others had taken notice too and their eyes stuck to the small bottle.  It was as if the whole world now revolved around this small beaker of glass.  Orsino nodded slowly.  How in the name of all that was holy had Varric managed to get _this?_   He couldn't tear his eyes from it.  

"What does his letter say?" Garras asked carefully.

As if he had forgotten about it, Orsino looked quickly to the note and picked it up, opening it with haste.

 

_O -_

_So I hope this letter reaches you okay, and that you've managed to make it to the little shack by the lake.  By now, Elinor will have fed you.  Good, isn't she?_

_And I'm guessing you've seen my little present.  Don't ask how I managed it.  It takes the mystery away!  Please just know that I wish I could have done more.  I could not get the phials for the rest that you travel with.  Please forgive me._

_What happened in Kirkwall should not have come to pass.  Things should never have gotten out of hand in the way that it did.  Was Anders right to do what he did?  Who knows?  I have put my feelers out to all corners of Thedas.  You should know that he left Kirkwall under the shame of Hawke pretty soon after a big fight with Meredith.  All I know is that miraculously you happen to be following his path.  He is heading north from Kirkwall.  There have been some half-assed sightings of him throughout the Free Marches but no definite word.  I'm assuming he would stay clear of the big cities but the asshole blew up the Chantry so what do I know?  Maybe he wants a piece of Tantervale.  I have a contact there.  Enzo is a tradesman, let's say, who lives near the East gate.  Ask at The Goose Inn but for the love of the Maker, stay away from the Templars._

_Which brings me on to another point.  This is not easy to say, especially to you, but Meredith is dead.  Hawke killed her.  I don't suppose it will surprise you but she had gone mad by the end.  Something to do with red lyrium.  I have absolutely no idea how she could have got it but she did._

_Anyway, you can trust Scales.  He is an old friend of mine._

_Goodbye, and good luck to you.  
_

_\- Varric._

 

His eyes had stopped seeing the very paper on which the note was written.  He no longer focussed on it.  Blood gushed next to his ears and nearly robbed him of every other sound.  He didn't even know if the others were still in the room with him.

"Olyver, you're trembling.  Are you okay?" Derani asked in concern.  For a few moments he said nothing, unaware how to even voice what he felt.  
"Please forgive me." he mumbled as he rose and walked quickly out of the room still clutching the letter.  

The cold air hit his face and with it, every emotion that he had ever surpressed, every scream he had ever rendered into the night with frustration, every argument he had ever had, every searing flush of anger that had made him see red - they all raged to the surface and demanded to be released.  The force of it almost choked him.  However, instead of crying out into the evening air, he found that he was cold.  Colder than he had ever felt.  He shook with release at the news that Varric had buried into the letter.  Those three words with so much blood soaked meaning.

_Meredith is dead._

The years of pain and anguish that he had suffered at the hands of that woman was crushing him.  His chest felt fit to rip open as he sought to gain a hold of his breathing.  Dizziness stirred him for a moment and the wounds inside his head threatened to drag him under.  She had made the life of every mage in the Gallows a living hell.  She had seen blood magic in every shadow and heard it on the tongue of every mage she had caged there.  Time after time _after time_ , Orsino had raged against her brutal regime, trying desperately to save his fellow mages.  She had delighted in those destined for Tranquility, only to have her make him watch it.  He had been powerless to stop her.  All the emotional heartache he had suffered made his insides feel as if they were draining away into the stones under his feet, only to break with crimson fury and stir back into him with the force of a hurricane.  He stayed perfectly still but only because he had lost the ability to control his body.  

Shaking, he found a seat nearby and slunk down onto it, his head falling into his hands.  Hatred poured out of him and he found himself weeping at it.  Slowly his hands rose to brush away those tears that were falling down his face in angry silence.  He rested his chin on his balled up fists and stared at the sand and stones underneath his feet.  Many scenes and memories of trauma were fighting for his attention, but his mind kept coming back to the closet that was licked with flames.

The door hinges creaked and Orsino looked up to see John walking over slowly to him.  He pursed his lips and his eyes regarded him as though wondering what to do next but cautious about intruding on what was evidently a distressing moment.  

"Orsino ..." John started slowly.  
"You know my name?" he exclaimed with a start.  This was bad.  What else did he know?  
"It is not difficult.  Varric mentioned a man with your description coming here.  He also used to keep me informed occasionally of what he was doing in Kirkwall.  He sometimes used to mention a certain First Enchanter so I put two and two together ..."

He paused and looked down at his hands.  Upon seeing the treasure, he held out the phylactery and walked closer.

"The others explained what it was.  I thought it was too important to just leave on the table where it could fall off and break."  
"Oh, the irony." Orsino said quietly, sitting back and half-smiling through the pain.  He took the proffered gift and swiftly put it into a inside pocket.  There were a few moments of hush where Orsino knew he was just letting him be.  
"Are you okay?  Everyone inside is quite worried.  I said I'd come and find out if you were alright.  I half expected my house to be on fire." he said in a soft, joking manner.

Orsino's head swung slowly.

"I would not do that to you."  
"So are you going to tell me?"  
"Someone is dead that caused me a lot of pain."  
"Oh."

The lake was lapping gently not far from him and Orsino listened to the sound, trying to soothe his mind.  He needed to calm down before he returned to the group and explained what Varric had told him.  It would take all his self-control.  A whispered healing spell calmed the red eyes.  John shuffled uncomfortably on the small seat next to him at the use of the arcane, even as small as it was.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable."  
"It's okay but that," John tipped his head toward the far shore and the ruined town, "was because of the threat of mages."

A shudder of fury at what happened to his kind rippled through Orsino, and once again his face fell into his hands.  All the destruction and death was because of a fear and ignorance of what magic could do, stoked by the sheer madness of what had happened in Kirkwall.  The lives that had been consumed because of this  _hatred_ was making him shake.  He felt a calming hand settle on his shoulder but it did little to alleviate the choking anger that was pulsing through him.  He recognised what John was trying to do though.  He was trying to show friendly support and it hit Orsino that in that simple gesture, John was showing him the one thing that he had denied himself; friendship.  He was a father to the group, their protector, but they weren't his friends.  He was too old for that.  Who was supporting him?  He had to be strong for the five that he led but how did he let go when he needed to be supported?  His shoulders slumped with weariness.

"What should I do?" he asked.  
"Come back into the house, drink some more tea, and listen to what I have to say.  You should also tell them something as well.  They are all fraught with nerves, whether they wish to share it or not.  They will need something to go on.  But come back in, nonetheless."

He nodded his head in agreement.  He was their leader whether he wanted to be or not, and they needed his guidance.  With a sigh, he rose, tucked the letter into his pocket and started the slow walk to the door of the house.


	5. Chapter 5

There was silence.

Orsino had stood at the table instead of taking his seat.  News of this magnitude should be delivered with stature, he had thought.  He had not read Varric's letter out in full, just those important words.  There was an almost palpable air of shock as he told them about Meredith.  It was Derani that broke the silence with peals of laughter.  It seized her and she scrunched up her body in fits of silent, hysterical giggles.  Garras looked caught between anguish and remorse, smiling slightly at Derani's reaction but not quite wanting to believe it himself.  Peter stared out of the window, his eyes drifting across untold horrors of the Circle.  Randall drew his hands through his hair and a relaxed air came over him.  He slumped back in his seat and wore a smile of victory.  Iselle hugged Bren a little closer and stared through the table.  Orsino looked one-by-one at the faces of his charges.  He had to keep a tight rein on the wealth of emotions he was feeling inside himself.  The last thing they needed was an unstable leader.  The group descended into excited chatter, led by Derani.  He sat down carefully and pulled the teapot towards him pleased to find it still warm.  He rested his elbows on the table and sipped at it, letting the noise wash over him.

"Are you okay?" a small voice to his left asked, almost imperceptible over the talk of the group.

Orsino looked over to see Iselle's blue eyes almost tinged with red.  They were open and looking straight at him.  She bit her lip slightly and from the wobble of her mouth, Orsino could see that she was struggling to remain composed too.

"Am  _I_ okay?" he asked, slightly confused.    
"Orsino, she baited you every day and made your life miserable.  That woman was beyond awful to you and you're sitting there like nothing has happened." she explained as tears fell.  Almost embarrassed, she removed an arm from around a sleeping Bren and wiped them away quickly.  
"Iselle ..." he started, setting his cup down.  He felt an air of inevitability fall on him.  How was he to even interpret how he felt at that moment, much less clarify it to someone else?  He was awash with emotions that he couldn't even pin down yet.  They moved and brawled inside his head like snapping dogs, or charging bulls.  Only on the outside was he calm.  He knew his role.  
"It's alright, Orsino.  You don't have to explain.  I can see how much this means to you.  I just hope you're okay."

She smiled at him though full of pain at the news of Meredith's death.  Orsino knew that the revelation would hit everyone in different ways.  Everyone who had lived in the Gallows had been hurt by the Templars and Meredith at some point.  But there was a fierce look in Iselle's eyes that spoke of a deeper pain.  Orsino couldn't help but try to help.

"You were ten when you came to the Gallows, am I right?" he asked.  He wouldn't have even been First Enchanter then.  How they had both changed in that decade.  She nodded.  "Ten years is a long time, yes?"  
"A decade can go very slowly when Templars ... when they ... "  Her eyes widened slightly as she stared back at him.

Slowly it dawned on him.  The tips of Orsino's ears began to tingle with a new kind of rage.  Shivers of anger took him and he dug his fingernails into his palms to keep from screaming out loud.  Suddenly his balled-up fists hit the table, jarring the cups and saucers that were still there.  The conversation around the table abruptly stopped and all eyes turned to him.  He knew they were all staring.  Derani's laugh descended into a confused sputter and then stopped altogether when she saw Iselle and Orsino looking at each other.  He wasn't the only one to have suffered diabolically at the hands of the Templars.  He couldn't stop staring at Iselle.  From the tears that still ran down her cheeks, the news had stirred abominable memories.

"She sanctioned it." he said in a low voice.  He had willed his voice to be tender out of compassion but the strain of repressing the anger brought it down to a whisper.  
"Maybe," she replied sadly, "but she certainly didn't stop it."  
"Iselle, I am so sorry.  I failed you.  If I'd known ... "  
"Orsino, what could you have done?  Genuinely - what could you have done?"

Crippling powerlessness threatened to engulf him.  The answer was he could have done nothing, except raise the issue, look to protect her more, accuse the Templars.  Grand Cleric Elthina would have put a stop to it but the vision of her face caused his gut to wrench with guilt.  However, even that would have been fruitless.  No-one would have taken the word of the mages against the military arm of the Chantry.  The more he looked at her, the more he felt failure well up inside him.  The only solace that came was from knowing that Meredith was no more, and that they were free.

"Please know that I wish I could have done more." came the subdued voice finally.  
"I know." she smiled with a broken, lop-sided grin.  Her eyes were dead though.  He would make sure they smiled again.    
"So, what is next for our merry band of travellers?" John cried out full of mirth as he came in through the door to the hut.

The air was heavy with emotion and as Orsino turned around on his chair to see him, John was looking rather awkwardly from one grim face to another.  Both he and Elinor had politely stepped out of the house while the news had been discussed but on returning, had stepped into a pit of melancholy.  Orsino tried to bid him come in.  Slowly he walked over to his chair and sat down with surprisingly delicacy.

"I'm assuming it's someone whose influence spread to all of you."  
"But especially Olyver." Randall said softly.  The First Enchanter looked over sharply but saw only sorrow in the young man's eyes.  
"Why?" John asked.

Orsino started to feel distinctly uncomfortable as to where this was going and he felt his cheeks blaze.  His eyes trailed to the floor.

"Maker above, I've taken you in, fed you, given you the news that you had travelled here to get, and you're still not trusting me.  I know  _you're_ a mage, Orsino ... "  At this revelation, there were gasps.  Around the table there was nervous shuffling.  
"You know who we are?" Iselle asked in fear.  
"My darling, I may be a fisherman but I am not dumb.  Varric does not pick stupid people to be friends with."  John sat back in his chair and folded his meaty arms.  "Orsino is your leader.  That much was obvious from when you arrived.  He was the one to speak first and lead you to me.  I know he's a mage because he used magic in front of me when I told him I knew who he was."  
"Orsino, what the ... ?" was the immediate response from Derani, along with exclamations of shock from the rest of the table.  He tried to speak, tried to form decent words, but they died on his lips.    
"Do not blame him." John laughed at Orsino's discomfort.  "It was I who acted first.  The rest of you, you have nothing to fear from me.  I need to explain some things." John's voice dropped to serious, and it was evident that he too was having trouble framing what he wanted to say.  "Let me start at the beginning, and try to put you all at ease."

The door hinges softly squealed again, announcing Elinor's entrance back into the hut.  Her face showed that she had heard the previous words.  She took her place next to her husband and with an encouraging pat to the leg, and a grave smile, she silently gave her permission to start the story.

"I know you are all mages," John started, "and please do not feel uncomfortable.  After what has happened to our village, I will never again accept the rule of Templar Law, or the Chantry.  You have won a fervent supporter in me."  Orsino glanced around solemnly at those watching.  He was pleased to see that not one of them wore a look of contempt.  They were all listening to him with rapt attention.  "You know that Tantervale is within one hundred miles of here, and I'm assuming you've heard tales of their rigid way of life?  They're true.  We've been having weekly patrols to the area to make sure that we're behaving ourselves.  Not many Templars, maybe two or three and they don't stay long.  Move on to the next settlement, Stonebridge, which is up the river towards the Minanter.  Anyway, they patrol and they are paranoid.  We haven't grown much in a long time as there's not really any reason to come here.  I know we are not near anything that could be termed a trade route, but most people were happy here."

Elinor poured more tea and proffered it to Orsino.  With a grateful smile, he took it and sipped, before returning avidly to John's story.

"There was a family that had been from these lands for three generations.  I knew them well.  The father taught people their letters in return for food, or ale, or some such goods.  He was scholarly, always reading.  They have - sorry, _had_ \- a son."  John stopped to drink from his cup.  Orsino could already tell where this was going and it wasn't good.  "Well, here's the thing.  The son started showing signs of magecraft around two years ago.  They never said officially but we all knew.  He was so often  _ill,_ or  _playing in the woods_ , but one night, Thomas - the father - came to our hut."  Here, John turned to look at his wife and the two shared a smile full of sorrow.  "He was in pieces and finally he told us - that Cael was a mage.  He had told virtually no-one.  This was a year ago.  We helped them cover their tracks, indeed most people in the town were good.  He was one of us, and we looked out for him.  However, someone must have told the Templars.  They arrived one day last week and spent the whole afternoon, wandering around Wildervale.  They went out to the farmsteads.  They found nothing but obviously they had caught the scent of a mage.  Two days ago they came back, with a force bigger than any I've seen in a long time.  The slaughter was huge.  Some managed to escape.  They are hiding ... nearby, let's say.  I will not tell you where so you do not have to lie."  
"What happened to Cael?" Orsino asked tactfully.  He was moved by this story but he knew where it was going.  He had seen the carnage.  There was a pull of horrific inevitability that made his stomach feel queasy.   
"Nobody would reveal where he was so the Knight-Commander gave the orders to gut the people of the village until he was brought forward.  Cael appeared, without his parents, and submitted to their chains.  I can only imagine he wanted to save the town that had been his home."  
"It was a futile gesture, wasn't it?" Derani asked, her normally brash demeanour brought low by the testimony.  "He gave the order to slaughter."  
"He knew people would be hiding nearby so he walked down to the shoreline, and roared out across the water.  'Run! Run and tell what happens when you hide these abominations!'.  But then, yes, he continued the killing.  We could hear the screams from here." he whispered as he stared through the table.  
"And see the flames." Elinor added gently.  "The smoke drifted out across.  It was awful.  True madness."

Orsino felt a kind of awkwardness from the break in the conversation.  This was not an unfamiliar tale to him.  Hadn't Kirkwall had the same kind of hysteria?  Hadn't he fought through the blood-soaked streets of that city?  Seen those mages he had almost raised from children lying dead in the street?  He sipped his drink and waited patiently for them to continue.

"I almost crawled to the end of our lakeside path to see what I could do.  Shame will always fall on me that I didn't do more but I would have been killed." John told them.  There was pleading in his voice to believe him and it was clear that he felt great remorse.  It was not the story of someone who was trying to hide behind false morals.  Elinor sniffed as she tenderly ran a hand across her husband's shoulder in a show of support.  "I saw Cael being taken off with the Templars, alive and covered in blood.  He just sat there, on the back of the horse, staring and looking as if nothing made sense."  
"Nothing would have made sense!" Derani spat.  "His life would have been over."  Orsino motioned with a calming hand for her to let John carry on.  She sat backwards slowly, anger starting to show in all corners of her face.  
"I emerged after they had gone but no-one was left alive.  No-one."

He grasped Elinor's hand and Orsino noticed that it was a hard grip.  Coughing, he readjusted himself in his seat and looked at Orsino.

"Naturally, we will look after Bren.  It's the least we can do." he told them, forlornly gazing at the sleeping child.  
"Will you stay here?"  
"There is nothing else we can do.  I have ways of getting food, fresh water, supplies.  I am still valuable to some people.  We will have to return to the village at some point and deal with the dead."  
"We can do that." came the gentle offer from Orsino.  "You should not have to see them as they are.  We will do it respectfully."  
"I don't doubt that you would but that is something for Wildervaleans.  We deal with our own.  No, I need you for something else."

A look of confusion ruffled Orsino's brow.  There was nothing else that they could do.

"And that would be?"  
"We need to rescue Cael."

Peter snorted and sat forward in his chair, wiping liquid off of his face and looking wildly at what Orsino would say.  

"And where do you think he is?"  
"Tantervale.  There is nowhere else he can be."

A headache was starting and Orsino leant over to massage his temple.  This was going to be ugly.  The thought of the poor boy lost and surrendered to the Circle of Magi was unthinkable.  Horror filled him as he thought back to his own Harrowing.  If the lad made it through such an ordeal, he would be imprisoned for life.  But it was unthinkable to even go near such a city.  It would be crawling with Templars, Sisters, clerics, and more folk that were passionate about its teachings.  It would be almost as bad as walking into Val Royeaux.  Rescue, or ruin?  His mind debated wildly.  Evidently he had left his pondering too long as it was fiercely interrupted.

"Orsino, you can't be seriously considering this?" Derani asked, her smiling mouth open but her eyes burned with incredulity.  
"I have a duty to all mages." he said calmly, holding her eye.  
"You have a duty to us!" she cried.  
"I do, that's true.  And what would you have me do?" Orsino replied heatedly.  "Leave him to the Harrowing?  Leave him to the Circle?  Leave him to the damn Templars?!"  
"Orsino, you would be going inside a city steeped in the Chantry.  It would be madness to do this!" Garras explained, trying to be calm but he too was coming undone around the edges.  
"Would you have him treated the same way you were, Garras?" Peter asked him flatly.  There was no emotion on his face, just a dull look of conclusion.  
"No, I would not," he replied gravely, before quickening up again, "but neither would I gamble with the lives of mages that are alive right now, on a quest to find someone we do not know!"  
"That is entirely selfish!" snapped Iselle.  
"Iselle, this would be a suicide mission!" Derani barked back.  
"We are on borrowed time anyway, Derani.  How long do you think we have?" she fixed the elf with a piercing glare.  This was not the Iselle they knew.  "We escaped Kirkwall, a city with a tower  _that still holds our phylacteries_.  The Templars could be on our heels.  If we catch Cael before the Harrowing, then he can escape the life that we had thrust upon us.  I would do this a thousand times over if I could save someone the pain that I have felt.  The Circle is an abomination to the Maker.  No person should ever feel so trapped and helpless over a chance of birth!" she spat.

Iselle sat back in her seat, breathing heavily.  Bren had jerked awake.  Elinor rose to take him and swiftly left the kitchen, her cheeks blazing with awkwardness.  There was silence around the table.  Orsino could hardly believe it himself.  Iselle had encapsulated so many of his own thoughts in that one outburst.  He wanted so desperately to save the young lad from a life of hostile servitude.  The fear of failure crept its evil little fingers into the edges of his mind and he felt himself fall.  He had failed so many of the mages in Kirkwall.  Such grief that the corridors of the Gallows had seen was too much to think about, and all under his leadership.  He had not saved more mages in the escape from the city.  He had not been able to save the few that had died in the crossing of the mountains.  He had not been able to keep from letting his heart go to his head when he thought about the boy and the terror he must be feeling.  

He tried to think of all the ways it would be a success, and tried to think of all the ways it would fail.  Pain riddled both sides.  If he saved the boy any days under the Templars, it would be worth it.  However, he had a duty to the mages he had now.  And, in Tantervale, there was the possibility of more information on his quest to find _that mage_.

"Orsino, your silence is telling." Derani stated abruptly.  "You have already chosen."  
"Yes." he looked to where she sat, propped forward and ready for a fight.  He fixed her with a steely stare.    
"If you do this, if you tell us to go, I will not be coming with you." she declared.  
"What!?" Randall erupted.

Orsino had expected as much but it still cut deep to hear it said out loud.  

"You make this choice, Derani, and I cannot look out for you.  I cannot keep you safe!"  
"Keep us safe!?" she cried, slamming her hands on the table and jumping to her feet.  "By taking us into _Tantervale?_  How is that reason!?  Orsino, you have let this need to see all mages free go to your head.  You would lead us to our death!"  
"Derani, listen to yourself!  If we hadn't have been with him, we would have suffered at Meredith's decree.  We would have been dead.  He deserves our respect." Peter cried.  
"It was a fortunate chance, and I am grateful for that, but you gave me my freedom, Orsino.  I will not waste it by running on some Maker-forsaken mission!"  
"And that is your choice?" Orsino asked, calmly looking at the raging elf.  Derani stood with her fists balled up on the table, her shoulders high and her nostrils flared.  This was fear.  She could not know the choking peril that echoed within himself at that moment.  
"Derani, reconsider what you're about to do, I beg you." Iselle said visibly calmer.  "Orsino has done nothing but protect us."  
"Of course you would say that, Iselle!" Derani snapped, causing the blonde mage to sink into her seat.  Her jaw was set with a wild embarrassment and she would look at no-one.  "Orsino, tell me once and for all.  Are you going to ask us to follow you into Tantervale?"

All eyes were on him.  He could feel the weight of expection settling on his shoulders.  This was it.  This was the breaking point.  He could not have helped those that had died.  For all his magics, he could not keep them from slipping beyond the Veil.  But this?  This was the point when he had to decide to let some of them go or not.  He looked at John, who had stayed tactfully silent during the heated exchange, only to see wide eyes that pleaded with him.  

"I can ask no-one to go further than they will," Orsino began tactfully, "but I will be going to Tantervale to try to find the boy.  I have given my life to the service of mages, and I cannot allow this apprentice to be left to the evil devices of the Templar order."  To his side, he heard John shuffle in his seat.    
"You can't rescue all of them, Orsino!" Derani cried out.  She was beyond distressed that he had made this decision.  
"No, I can't, but I managed to help you escape, Derani.  You have the chance of a life now.  Cael doesn't.  I could not live with myself if he was not afforded the same opportunity."  He stared hard at the elf who so plainly hated the decision he had made.  "I beg you to change your mind but who would I be if I denied you your freedom to choose?"

The fight had drained from Derani and she stared at the table, blinking several times in disbelief.  

"I can't follow you." she said quietly.  Awkwardly, she moved around the table and walked to the door, stopping only to pick up her bag and travelling cloak.  Orsino could hear the soft sounds of panic from the other mages.  Derani stopped on the threshold of the door and turned back to the table.  "Garras?"

Orsino turned round quickly to see that the tall mage was already standing.  He looked at the First Enchanter with the dilemma of his actions plainly written in his eyes.

"Thank you for saving me, and I'm sorry," he said quietly as he looked Orsino directly in the eye, "but she is my life.  I cannot live without her."

He too moved around the table in awkward silence and fetched his satchel.  Without a word, she took his hand and the two of them left the hut.  Orsino stared at the door that swung back slowly to fall shut.  The room fell silent.  There was only emptiness and doubt inside him now.  Had he made the right choice?  Inside his head, there was a dull ache that shut off his ability to think clearly.  Two of his charges had left him, of their own volition.  He could no longer protect them but they had made their own choice.  They had used their freedom that he had earned for them.

"This is madness." he whispered to himself.  "Madness."

Slowly he looked around at the faces of the three that were left; Iselle, Randall, and Peter.  There was a mixture of sadness and despondency written on their faces, and immense fear.  But as he looked at them, one by one, he felt a surprise emotion; pride.  They had stuck with him.  These three had chosen _him_.  It filled Orsino with a hope that he not felt for a while.  He knew he could look after them.  He had looked after the Circle mages in Kirkwall, and there had been many more of them.  It felt a challenge to lead these few out in the wider world, especially on a chase that would be so dangerous.  However, he was ready for it.  More than ready.

"Right then, John," he asked, turning to the fisherman and ignoring the space around the table, "what is your plan?"


	6. Chapter 6

It had been a day since they had stumbled across John's little oasis.  At Orsino's insistence, John had not returned to the village straight away to deal with the dead. He had advocated burning the corpses to give them some kind of funeral rite.  Randall had managed to persuade him not to use fire, arguing that the pyre needed would have alerted any Templars that remained in the area that people were still here. Their ferocity in dealing with Windervale Town the first time would be matched by their tenacity to route out all survivors.  Randall had argued that it would have led them to Elinor, Bren and anyone else still hiding in the fringes of the former settlement.  After a tense discussion, John had relented and allowed the mages to use their means to deal with the bodies, but under his supervision. Iselle stayed with Bren and Elinor and helped sort out supplies for their journey.

The barge that carried the less common goods had arrived the next day, quite by accident. After being unable to berth at the destroyed jetty, it had travelled to John's shack and had disgorged a visibly upset trader. The sailor and the fisherman evidently knew each other and it was with solemnity that they greeted the other. Hushed voices and disbelief flew between them, giving over into angry gestures and furious avowals.  Samuel, the bargeman, had agreed to take them as far as he could. Orsino had stood by quietly as he listened for any sign that the man would be untrustworthy. Varric had trusted John, and John had a working relationship with Samuel, and this would have to be good enough for the First Enchanter. His keen ears and eyes searched for any clues in body language, tone of voice, anything, but nothing was making him nervous. Just yet.

As the small barge sailed quietly up the river, exhaustion was beginning to play games with Orsino's mind.  The warmth of the day, twinned with the cool breeze coming over the prow of the boat, plus the weariness that plagued him, caused his eyes to feel heavier than usual. Leaning over the small lip, he dragged a cloth through the water and let his arm stay there a while longer than was necessary. It was refreshingly icy, the jolt of which gave him the power to stay awake a little longer. He pulled the cloth up out of the river and draped it over the back of his neck, not even bothering to wring it first.  Another small shockwave of cold caused a shiver to prickle his skin, despite the heat of the day.  The cloth stayed hanging around his neck and he smiled lazily to himself as he leant back against the boat. It gave him a slight kick to staying awake and he returned to his post as lookout.  They were all stationed at various points around the boat. Randall sat further down the deck from him on the starboard side but if Orsino looked, the boy's head kept bobbing with the same problem that was plaguing him.  Orsino leant his head back for a moment.

 

_The candle in front of Orsino was burning low, close to guttering out, and he reached across the table to draw another one closer. Someone had left theirs behind and he was going to capitalise on it. He held the blackened wick just low enough to catch and when it did, he let it take hold for few moments. It sparked a little, and sent a thin tendril of black smoke rising into the air. He puddled drips of hot wax onto the holder, enough to fix the candle stub and allow it to stand. The light grew taller as it grew stronger and he ran his fingers through the flames, an old habit from growing up. As he turned his fingers over to see the soft charring on his skin, he smiled nostalgically to himself . The candle would give him an hour, maybe a little more. Plenty of time._

_He pulled the parchment closer to him and once again picked up his quill. The book he had been reading - A study of the effect of lyrium-infused water on herb growth, by Brother William of Vale - had been particularly fascinating. It was propped up against a pile of mismatched books, and as he scratched notes on his paper with one hand, he held the pages open with another. The study of herbs had always attracted him. He felt it was an underappreciated area of magic, akin to alchemy. There were rooms in the Gallows that allowed mages to boil and brew draughts and restoratives. He had already spent several days trying to concoct an elixir to raise Maud's spirits but he had had no luck. She would take none of the liquors that he brought her._

_Orsino felt his mind wander with worry at such a thought, and his eyes stared through the open book and into clouded memories. Maud was dearer to him than anyone else in the Gallows. The low spirits seemed to have caught her completely this time. Every other time he could rouse her with a laugh, or the present of a flower. Letters from the homes of his fellow apprentices sometimes contained poems, or folk-tales, and he meticulously transcribed them ready to present to her, hoping they would make her happy. To anyone else the smiles of gratitude would have seemed genuine. But now, the same fears as before were keeping him awake. There was no longer any pretense on her part. The Templars were circling, which only added to the screaming pressure that she told him was inside her. If only he could realise some kind of antidote to whatever she was feeling, maybe this time she could rid herself of this sickness forever. Hurriedly he kept on reading and taking his notes._

_Through the open windows came the peal of bells from the Chantry tower, announcing to Orsino the very late hour. He lay his quill down, and sat back in his chair. Glancing around, he was amused to see that he was the only mage still in the Grand Library. At the entrance, two Templars stood watching him, barely able to keep the disgust from their faces. They wanted to return to their barracks but they had to babysit, or so their faces told him. The fire that had burned brightly in the grate at the beginning of the evening had long since collapsed to embers. It was cold and the shadows were long. Orsino shivered and realised that perhaps he should have returned to his chambers a long time ago. With a sigh, he rolled up his parchments and placed them in his satchel, along with the quill. He would have to continue his search tomorrow. He stood up and blew out the candle he had so meticulously brought to life. Gathering his things, he made sure nothing was left, and returned the book to the shelf he had borrowed it from._

_"Gentlemen, you may escort me back now." he announced to his guardians. Murmuring obscenities, they gathered their weapons to escort him back, keeping a wary eye on the staff he used to walk along. Even though he was forbidden from using magic in anything other than studies, the Templars still held their charges at arm's length. There was an unspoken assumption that their magic was too dangerous for them to control by themselves. Clampdowns had recently wrestled more control away from the mages about when and where they could practice their craft. Orsino bitterly disagreed with it but he was not about to bring unwanted attention on himself. There was no point attracting the further ire of the Templars. They hated him enough as it was._

_They flanked him as they left the Library and started walking along corridors of marble. The soft sounds of his robe brushing against the cold, smooth floor muffled the hard bluntness of the armour that marched alongside him. The ceilings were high above him and the carvings gazed severely down on the trio, almost disapproving but upon whom, he could not tell. Guards were stationed in the hallways but with the late hour, along came a slight relaxation in their appearance. His sharp eyes saw an open door reveal a card game among soldiers, and his ears heard the mirth between the comrades. To the side of him, a growl sounded low in the chest of the elder of the two Templars. Evidently, Orsino was not the only one to have seen it. A trill of victory rippled through him but he kept the smile from his lips._

_The route back to the mage quarters was cold and silent. As they passed the doors to the new Knight-Captain, Orsino saw that the door was open. He allowed himself a look in and saw that the blonde woman was working hard at her desk. Perhaps she had also not noticed the time passing. At the noise in the corridor, she glanced up from her work. Orsino, feeling impish, nodded to her with a knowing smile and carried on._

_"Wait!" came the shrill cry from inside the office._

_The Templars that flanked him immediately halted and whirled around. The keen eye for order from the Knight-Captain had been ingrained into the soldiers as well and with military precision, they turned and faced her, their boots echoing loudly on the marble floor as they stood to attention. Orsino was a little slower to turn but he knew enough to be contrite when speaking to his captors. He watched as she emerged smartly from her office, still in full uniform. She was a handsome woman, maybe five years older than Orsino, but her face had been etched by lines of anguish already. From what he did not know but he guessed the pressure of her rise to the office of Knight-Captain at a young age was enough. With almost keen precision, she strode up to him. She arched an eyebrow as she stared at him intently._

_"Mage Orsino, why are you not in your quarters preparing for sleep?"_  
_"I have been working late in the Library, Knight-Captain." he said. "A treatise on herbs was most interesting."_

_The explanation seemed to throw the woman.  Had she expected him to be escorted because he had broken the rules and he was being led away for punishment?_

_"Is this true?" she asked the Templars, evidently disbelieving Orsino's offering._  
_"He has been in the Grand Library, Knight-Captain Stannard, but working on what, I cannot say."_

_Orsino pulled the notes he had written from his satchel and thrust out his hand. He didn't like not being believed._

_"Here, please." he insisted, almost pushing the pieces of paper at her. She took them and briefly looked them over, her eyes flicking from the scribbles in front of her to scrutinising his face. She scowled as she handed them back._  
_"Yes, well, there are rules about when mages are allowed to be out of their quarters. By all rights, you should be there now.'_  
_"It is where we were heading, I promise."_  
_"You are doing well in your studies?"_  
_Orsino nodded. "As well as can be hoped. I needed a little extra time so I took the liberty of staying an extra hour to read."_  
_"That is a most admirable trait. One that I wish all the other mages would replicate."_

_There was a steely look in her eye that sent a shiver over Orsino's skin. It fixed him to the spot and he felt goose bumps prickle his skin. The severity of what she was implying had him rooted to the spot. They had Maud in their sights, it was obvious. He knew all would be over if he gave any indication that he was worried about another mage. It could very easily be used against him. Did she know already how he felt about his friend? Was she trying to be spiteful in order to get a rise out of him? It was entirely possible. She was rumoured to be quite severe but any dealings he had had with her had always been cordial, if a little dour. But now he had to protect his friend. With a will of iron, he calmed his breathing down and kept his face impassive and submissive. Slowly she watched him for any signs but he would give her none. At long last she gave her assent for him to proceed to keep going._

_"You may return to the mages quarters. I am pleased with how you have acted tonight. I hope your conscientious behaviour will cause others to follow your lead."_  
_"Thank you, Knight-Captain Stannard. You are most kind."_

_With a nod of the head, he turned and walked off towards his bed chamber. As he walked silently next to the Templars that accompanied him, he allowed himself to feel the first clutches of panic. He needed to protect Maud but how could he do that if she would not listen to him? He would try harder to rescue her from the depression she was succumbing to. He could do this. He knew he could._

 

Orsino blinked open his eyes rapidly and sat up quickly, rubbing the grit from his eyes. Quickly he looked around for any danger as the last vestiges of sleep clung to his mind. There was none that he could see and he slowly sank back down once he was confident that all was well. Groaning, he sat forward and rubbed the muscles in his neck. There had been many times in his youth that he had fallen asleep on top of a book, or slouched against the stone wall of the library, and bounced awake with no pain to show for it. However, those days were long gone. His neck would ache for days and he grumbled moodily to himself.

"Orsino, do you want a drink?" He looked up to see John stood over him, proffering a bronze cup. "I have had enough of staring at the wake of our boat. I need to move."

The cool water revived Orsino a little and he drank deeply before handing back the tankard.

"Thank you." he smiled gratefully. "What plans have we for the trip ahead?"  
"I do not know." John said gravely, taking a seat on a small barrel.  "We have been travelling for hours and I have seen nothing. The road does not hold to the river until further up so we have a while, but we will see patrols before long."  
"What does Samuel know about us?"

John's mouth broke with a sly smile.

"He doesn't ask questions of me, and I don't ask questions of him. We assist each other in our business."  
"I see."  
"You are quite safe, Orsino. Have no fear."  
"Ha!" he laughed bitterly. The heat had started a melancholy in him. "We will never be safe, my charges and I. We always be wary of meeting people, always afraid of what the next hour will bring."  
"What a wicked way to live. There must be joy in life, not constant oppression."  
"You have never experienced the confinement that comes from being born and growing into powers that the world views as evil."  
"No, I have not. Thank the Maker."

The man looked up to stare further down the river. It was obvious where his mind was. If he could have plucked Cael out from the pit of snakes that was the Templar stronghold, he would have died to do it.

"Why do people fear mages?" he breathed, confusion rippling across his brow.  
"Because we have the power to do things they can't? A lack of education? Vile rumours? Take your pick."  
"To be so defined by something over which you have no control."  
"Indeed. Some say we are born of fire and rage, a demon's pet, but it is wrong. We are creatures of potential, of the possible. People fear what they do not know, John. We have been locked away and decried for so long that the wider world have forgotten that we are also people too. But they would deny us and claim we are the pawns of higher beings."  
"Because they have been fed the lies of the Chantry." John spat.  
"You really hate the Chantry so?"  
"How could an institution so nurturing and loving to some, turn and command the death of so many?" he bridled, throwing his hand out to the town that lay far behind them.

Orsino sighed. John's head bent low and he could see the rawness of the pain the man carried round. Sympathy stirred within him and he felt the madness dissipate.

"I do not know why Wildervale was put to the sword but a foul madness swirls around this whole business. Mages are hated - it is true - but not to the extent that mass, and indiscriminate, slaughter is an appropriate course of action for the Templars."  
"What do you mean?"  
"That something else is at play here but what it is, I do not know."  
"I wish I could help you."  
"You are helping. You are showing that there are some that still care about my people. Do not underestimate the value of that to my fellow mages, and to me. We have seen scant evidence of it elsewhere."  
"Your mages - you care about them?"  
"Of course, greatly." Orsino shrugged, as if the response was obvious.  "I am responsible for them."  
"How? Why?"  
"What do you mean 'why'? I have a duty to them. I was their First Enchanter."  
"But you're not in a Circle any more. Surely that does not apply."  
"It does to me." Orsino murmured as he looked away.  
"John, Orsino. Look sharp." Samuel said tensely as he walked up the side of the boat to them, nodding further up the river. A look of concentration set deep lines around his eyes and Orsino followed his line of sight.

He scrambled to his knees immediately and peered around the cabin wall. The road appeared to have started following the river on the westbank where the land was flat and empty of vegetation. The river was curving westward and just on the bend, an outcrop of rock sat as a proud guardian to the waterway. Orsino's heart sank as he saw the flash of sunlight reflecting from the metal of armour. They were still a long way off but Orsino's mind calmly wound into action.

"What do we do, Orsino?" came Peter's nervous call.  
"We do nothing. These are Templars, we have dealt with them all our lives. They are watching the river, nothing more." he told them calmly. He could not see them but knew that all three of them would be nervous. "If you feel uncomfortable, move inside now but do it slowly. A hasty move will tell them far more than anything we could say to them."

From his couched position, he could tell that at least one of his group had made the move. At the sound of shuffling, Orsino's heartrate had picked up but he was pleased to hear it was slow and relaxed. However from the noises within the cabin, someone was panicking. The muffled sound of boxes falling over caused Samuel to growl and mutter.

"Orsino, you will have to stay down." John muttered.  
"Why?" he asked, never taking his eyes from the approaching problem. "I would have to manipulate the arcane directly in front of them. They cannot simply smell my magic."  
"Even if they could, that is not what I am talking about."

The barge carried on it's slow wend up the river. Orsino could not keep his eyes from the soldiers who by now were separate people, and not an amorphous bright glare. He counted three on the promentary. One walked off towards some horses that were tied up nearby but the two that remained watched the small cargo boat very keenly.  Slowly the rock drew close enough that they could see the faces of the Templars. They spoke quietly to each other but kept their eyes on the boat and its crew. They were almost calculating in the way they were assessing the ship. From his hidden position, Orsino could see that they were studying the mage who remained on the port side nearest to them. Orsino swallowed against a suddenly dry throat.  He suddenly realised why Samuel had told him to stay out of sight.  It was awkward but unfortunately sensible.  However, it did mean he didn't have the ability to step in front of his mages as he wished to do. He couldn't shout out to engage the soldiers in conversation should they start to talk to his people. He had to hope that they would direct their attention to the two men stood just by him.

"Good afternoon." the shorter of the two Templars called out seriously.  
"Good afternoon!" Samuel called back, apparent ease and friendliness oozing out of the smile he had managed to fashion. "What a glorious day! Not a day to be wearing heavy armour." he called out, easing himself into a friendly laugh.  
"Indeed. Where are you headed?"  
"To Starkhaven, back to my trading post. I don't suppose you need some bread?"

Samuel strode over to the supplies box at the bow of the boat and drew out a loaf of bread that Elinor had made for them. He held it out to the soldiers.  With a dismissive wave of the hand, the Templars declined his offer. Samuel shrugged and replaced the hoard but turned back to them with a canteen.

"Water then?"  
"No. Thank you. Who are these on board with you?"  
"My employees, naturally. This gentleman here," Samuel slapped John on his shoulder, "has paid for passage to the city and I was glad to oblige. The wars are bringing paltry opportunities to realise a profit." he shrugged. "I take the money where I can."  
"And the elf?"

Orsino felt a sudden dizziness, spiked by his hatred. They had seen him.  However, the use of his race implied they did not recognise him for what else he was.  He stared at the deck as he panted slightly, wracking his mind as to what to do. Samuel glanced down to where he hid.

"This slave?" he said, reaching down and pulling Orsino up roughly by his collar. Shaken, he felt the crack of a hand against his cheek that sent his head spinning. As his watering eyes tried desperately to focus, he felt himself thrown back onto the deck and he landed with a crash on a coil of rope. Orsino tried desperately to keep up with the pretense and raised his shaking hands to shield his head. "Get back in the cabin, knife ears, and do your job. Nobody wants to see you out here." Samuel snarled.

The sailsman took the opportunity to kick Orsino hard in the leg and he hobbled quickly into the cabin. A last look at the Templar through wavering vision saw a smirk on that arrogant face. He pushed open the doors to the cabin and stumbled in. A vile taste of metal spread across his mouth and he turned to spit blood onto the floor. Even that stung and he raised his hand to massage the throbbing in his cheek with the other hand clinging onto a box for support. 

"Orsino?" came a frantic whisper.

There was a few small windows in the cabin where light streamed in.  Looking up, Orsino saw Peter staring at him, his eyes wide with fright and desperate for information. He shook his head and threw his eyes out towards where the Templars stood, raising a silencing finger to his lips. He motioned with an open palm to wait and hoped Peter would follow his lead when he sat down on a box. It would be a waiting game now. They would have to disappear from view as the river was wide and the curves were slight. The boat had been sailing slowly due to a lack of strong breeze and it would take a long time to travel far enough to be outside of the Templars' range.

"I know!" came Samuel's loud voice. "So damn lazy! I wish the Exalted Marches had purged the lot of them, but then who would I have to beat and take my anger out on?"

He laughed cruelly and in the semi-darkness of the cabin, Orsino locked eyes with Peter. The boy didn't know where to look. His cheeks burned with embarrassment as he shifted on his feet and fiddled awkwardly with the ends of his sleeves. Orsino hoped that Samuel had been playing a role but there was a small part of him that believed the act was true. The small child from the alienage was evidently still inside him somewhere, twisting that side of him that ached to have been born anything other than an elf. As soon as Orsino relived those desires, the guilt of such a want inevitably washed over him - that he was betraying his race. There was no winning. He was an elf who had been born a mage; two classes of people despised and derided throughout Thedas. Orsino sighed solemnly through his nose and waited for the doors to be opened. He grinned with irony that he could not even heal himself at the present. He just had to sit there, swallowing bloody spit and massaging his bruised and painful leg.

Eventually he heard Samuel shouting his goodbyes then the noise subsided and all fell to quiet. Orsino caught the sound of someone walking around the edge of the boat. He could still hear the low rumblings of Samuel and John talking whilst moving boxes around on deck. The door clicked open quietly and Iselle slipped silently around the door. Her face betrayed the wild anger she felt and as she stood there, Orsino could see that she shook with rage. Her eyes stared at his cheek and his hand where he was holding his leg. She bit her lip hard and Orsino could see that her fingers were flexing, a move that he had seen her repeat on many occasions when she was desperate to use magic. Silently he shook his head and she took a deep breath in, only to exhale slowly through pursed lips. It was rare that Iselle became so angry.

"Are you okay?" she managed to say eventually, her voice unnaturally even.  
"I am." he lied.

She sat down quietly and the three waited in the semi-dark. Eventually, there were determined footfalls that stopped momentarily in front of the door.  They were brought open and Samuel stood there, instantly locking eyes with Orsino.  He stood there silently, his head tipped slightly back as if afraid any of the mages on the barge would brutalise him.  John stood behind him, equally as serious.  Slowly Orsino stood up as the trader braced himself.  He could hear Iselle bristle at the side of him.

"I am sorry." came the firm avowal.  
"Why?" snarled Randall, who had appeared behind the tradesman.  "Why did you have to do that?"  
"Why do you think?  Did I want the Templars to question me further and find out I was harbouring apostates?  Why, _no_ , I didn't!  Did I want them crawling all over the ship?  Think!"  
"You punched Orsino!" Iselle yelped.  
"I gave the Templar what he wanted, which was his belief that we were normal."  
"What?!" she screeched.  "You  _dare_ imply that he's  _not normal?_ "  
"Iselle, calm yourself." Orsino said evenly, trying to placate the girl.  Holding her by the upper arms, he tried to gain her attention and stepped in between her and Samuel.  "Do you think that somehow I don't know why he did this?" he asked, gesturing to his face.  "Do you think that I've forgotten who I am?"

She stopped to look at him.  She seemed distrusting, confused almost.  Maybe she was the one who had forgotten his birthright.  

"I did it to make him think you were an ordinary elf." Samuel explained rapidly.  
"I am about to enter a major city, Iselle.  Outside of any Circle." Orsino said.  "This will become the norm, if I am tolerated at all.  I know what the views are of my people.  I am not afraid."

Iselle roughly shrugged off the shackles of his hands and he watched her features soften to a scowl.  Without saying a word, she raised her hand to Orsino's cheek and he felt the warmth of healing magic flow through him.  The brevity and strength of it took him slightly aback but when she let her hand go, he could feel the swelling in his cheek had lessened considerably and the pain had almost gone.  He twitched his chin from side-to-side and was pleased to find the tightness in his jaw had gone.  Gratefully he smiled at Iselle for her help, which she returned warmly.  However, she soon turned and pinned Samuel to the spot as she glared at him.  Taking a few steps towards him caused Samuel to shuffle backwards quickly but Iselle only moved past him, uncomfortably close from the look on the sailor's face.  Through the open door, Orsino could see that she took a seat near the aft and sat with her back rigid, facing out towards the wake of the water.  He knew that his charges would have been afraid of being discovered but it seemed like such a peculiar reaction from her.  

"Orsino, I truly am sorry." Samuel said, still trying to inch back from the man.  Orsino returned his gaze to inside the cabin.  "Please don't turn me into ash."

The last remark was mewled and Orsino raised a sly grin as he looked over.  

"I will not do so ... _today_." he smirked.  "I understand why you did it.  Doesn't mean I like it though.  You stopped the Templars investigating the boat and drew their attention away from my mages.  I thank you for that."  He stuck a hand out and waited while Samuel looked at it cautiously.  Timidly he reached forward and grasped it, still regarding the mage askance and with little attempt to cover up the mistrust.  Still he shook it though.  "Randall, Peter?  Are you both okay?"  Randall nodded whilst Peter replied that he was.  "Good.  Please, I am going to go and check whether Iselle is too.  You two, assist Samuel in preparing the evening meal."

The two murmured their assent and he listened whilst Samuel started to give out directions, obviously unaware of the time of day.  He left them behind to bring about some kind of supper.  Quietly he walked over to the rear of the boat and pulled over a barrel.  He sat next to Iselle and looked at the side of her face.  She stared out across the water, quiet in contemplation and sitting as still as before.  Orsino turned to look at the scenery too, unsure whether to break her solitude or just to sit next to her.  The stretch of the river on which they sailed took them westwards for the moment and the late afternoon sun was sinking slowly behind them.  Wisps of clouds picked out in pink highlights floated lazily above them, announcing a balmy evening.  Samuel had some Rivaini rum hidden somewhere on the boat.  Orsino was convinced he could be tempted to break it out and let them all sit and enjoy a relaxing evening.  It would certainly be tempting, and sorely needed.  Again, he turned to regard the side of Iselle's face, and was pleasantly surprised to find her looking at him, although she looked away at the same moment.

"Do you wish to talk?" he asked gently.  
"I do not know what to say."  
"It promises to be a beautiful evening.  You could remark on that."  
"Why would I do such a thing?  It seems such a superficial thing to say at the moment."  
"How so?"  
"I am so angry that the state of the sun means nothing to me."  
"Why are you so angry, Iselle?"  
"I saw my friend hit for simply being who he was.  No other reason." she said, her lips tight and her eyes sharp.  
"It is one of the many injustices in the world."  
"It shouldn't be."  
"It is my load to bear, Iselle."  
"Wrong, Orsino!" she snapped, turning to him quickly.  "I say you are wrong.  It is  _all_ our duties to protect each other!  We are a group under the same lethal banner - that we are apostates.  That joins us in such a way that rank means nothing.  You are one of us and as such, should enjoy the protection of us too."  
"Iselle ..."  
"He  _hit_ you, Orsino, simply for being an elf."  The words hung in the air poisonously.  "You say you are ready for Tantervale but have you stopped to think if  _we_ are ready?  If we will be able to stop and see our leader attacked for being different?"

Her blue eyes stared at him furiously.  Any replies to her died on his tongue.  He was flattered that she felt this loyal and he couldn't deny it to himself.

"You think I am being too cavalier?"  
"I think you are forgetting that we need you, and if you are attacked, we cannot defend you.  Our defence is our magic, and that will be ripped from us in Tantervale.  If it is as overrun with Templars and the Chantry as they say, then how can we hope to defend each other?  We have never trained with any other weapon."  
"Are you saying you have changed your mind?  That you don't want to go to the city?"  
"No, not even remotely.  I will follow you anywhere ..."

Her eyes dropped shut with embarrassment and she bit her lip.  Her shoulders slouched and she stared at her hands as her fingers slipped around each other with a nervous energy.  Orsino could see that she shook her head slightly, admonishing herself for saying such a thing.  He was enchanted by her loyalty to the group, and her evident desire to see all of them safe.  For a moment, he wondered if they were the only two who felt such an allegiance.  Would Randall or Peter be the same if pushed?  He liked to think so but knowing that at least one of his charges did gave him an energy that he could not account for.  It made him feel as if his hard work and sacrifice had been for something.  He smiled at Iselle, even though she wasn't looking his way.  He did not care.

"It really is going to be a beautiful evening." she said quietly as she looked up to the countryside that was slowly slipping past them.  
"Yes," he grinned, "I believe it will be."


	7. Chapter 7

Orsino took a look around the campfire and smiled.  Small pockets of conversation were happening between several of his mages, and it pleased him.  Peter had captured John for a conversation.  On what, Orsino couldn't tell but they both seemed wrapped up in it.  It was pleasing to see Peter join in.  There was a doubt wriggling at the back of his mind about the boy.  He knew the young mage quite well and since leaving Kirkwall, something wasn't settling with him but Orsino couldn't figure out what it was.  There was nothing he could name in anything that Peter did, apart from being a lad who was prone to moments of depression.  It was more than understandable after his history though.  Tonight, Orsino was just happy to see him engaging with someone.

He let his eyes fall shut and listened to the sounds of the forest around him.  The boat had come alongside an area of the riverbank where the water was slightly deeper.  Samuel had guided the boat in with ease and it was obvious from his confident mooring that he had used this particular berth before.  Orsino had jumped off, along with Randall, and they had lashed the boat to a couple of nearby trees.  The forest was particularly dense in this region but Samuel knew of a small enclosure that they could use to light a fire and warm themselves.  It was only a small way off from the water and would provide enough shelter.  Orsino could still hear the slow passage of the river, and if he concentrated, the gentle lap of the water against the hull.  It bumped with a dull thud every now and again against the bank and he found it strangely soothing to listen to.  He had only ever been allowed to watch out over the water.  To actually travel on it was a prize beyond measure.  The sea was escape to him.  In Kirkwall, boats had disgorged travellers daily who reeked of adventure and foreign lands.  He loved the open and unending nature of the water.  He took any opportunity he got to smell the river, or to listen to it, or to dip his hands in it.  He smiled and sighed peacefully through his nose as he listened to it now.

"Here we go!" Samuel cried out as he walked back from the boat.  He sat down with a thump and a happy grin, and proudly displayed what he had been searching for in the boat; a large bottle of Rivaini rum.  Uncorking it with a wide smile of victory, he poured an amount into a small tankard before handing the cup to Iselle.  With a bashful smile, he said quietly "I only had one clean cup and I'd rather let the lady have it."

Iselle's face lit up at the compliment and she took the cup timidly.  Orsino didn't know whether she had ever drunk alcohol before but as she took a small sip and then spluttered, he suspected not.  She glanced round the group embarrassed but they were too busy anticipating and discussing the bottle that was being passed round to notice.  Her confused face peered into the cup as if she was trying to decide if it was poison or not.  Orsino felt a small smile lift the corners of his mouth.  Randall drank deeply and upon releasing it, broke into a wide grin.  He most definitely approved.  Peter was next and took the bottle but spent a few moments reading the label first.

"Huh." he muttered before taking a sip.  
"What's up?" John asked, taking the bottle and drinking.  
"The label uses a dialect I haven't read before."  
"You're fluent in Rivaini?" asked a surprised Iselle.  
"I have never had cause to speak it but I spent much of my years learning some of the languages of Thedas, yes."  
"Why Rivaini though?"

Peter picked at the clothes around his knees and his face suddenly showed a discomfort to talk.  

"Because that's where I'm from." a quiet voice told them eventually, glancing up at Orsino.  

Peter sat up suddenly and took a large drink from the bottle, but his eyes misted over and he stared through it as he brought it down again.  There was a palpable sense of curiosity from the group.  They had been alone together for almost a month now.  The journey had hardened them, yet brought a soft intimacy that close friends enjoyed.  Peter had never been comfortable revealing much about his past life to anyone and here he was, telling them key details about his life before the Circle of Magi.  Orsino knew, of course, but it wasn't his place to reveal such things.

"You never told us." Iselle breathed, conscious that this was a big reveal for Peter.  
"Why would I?  My mother was a hedge mage.  The Chantry ripped me from her.  I do not have the even temper to think back to then."  
"How old were you when you were taken?" Randall asked, suddenly sombre, but Peter continued to stare at the bottle.  With determination, he took a large swill and then handed the bottle to John, the conversation about his history suddenly and forcefully over.  Orsino stayed quiet as well.  He remembered the boy coming to the Circle, all those years ago.  A small child, so young and scared, arriving to a place devoid of warmth and so far removed from the home that he had been taken from.  It gave him a chill to think that it had been over twelve years already.  Peter stared into his lap and Orsino deemed it prudent to leave him be for a moment.

"Maker, this is good!" coughed John loudly as he took a drag.  "Where did you get this?"  
"A favour for a job I undertook." Samuel replied mysteriously, grinning at the man.  John simply shrugged with a similar smile and handed the bottle to Orsino.  

It was a bottle made of solid, weighty, glass, and that made it feel worthy when in the hand.  Orsino looked at the label as well, trying to see if he could read any the words.  He knew precious little of the language but the puzzle still picked at his mind and tempted his intellect.  Stems of words made it possible for Orsino to guess roughly what it meant.  He turned it to look how much of the rum had already gone and was pleased to see only a quarter had gone already.  He was cautious about how much they would drink.   _Ever the protector,_ he told himself.  Slowly he put his nose over the opening.  He was pleasantly surprised to smell a sweet earthiness but hiding a fire that grew stronger the longer he inhaled.  He could almost taste the spices that had been used.  Putting the bottle to his mouth and lifting, he drank.  It was wonderful and syrupy, sweet yet potent.  It burned delightfully on the way down and he could feel the warmth spreading throughout his body.  He was definitely impressed.

Samuel took the rum from him and took another drink.  He looked round the group with a mischeivous grin in his eye.

"So many gloomy faces.  You can relax here.  I know - let's play a game.  You three ..." he said, pointing a finger at Iselle, Randall, and Peter, " - have to come up with a perfect evening for your boss here."  Here, he smacked Orsino on the shoulder with a friendly thump.  Orsino scowled good-naturedly at the man.  "He has to pick the best one.  The winner gets to drink next."

Orsino was suddenly thrown into thought.  Even he didn't know what his perfect evening would be.  He sat back and thought for a while.  He had always been happy hidden away in his office, surrounded by his books and parchments.  Always studying, always learning.  It was his fallback for when injustices of the Circle was getting too much to bear.  At least in his office he could feel like he was acheiving something.  But was reading a _perfect_ evening?  They had never really been allowed to read stories.  Maybe fiction would have softened his life somewhat.  Sometimes his fellow mages would be sent tales that he would collect into a book.  He let his mind drift back and his memory alighted on one evening when he and Maud, under the pretence of learning astronomy, had argued their way to the rooftop of the Gallows.  There was an armed guard at all times but the two of them had laid back on the sloped roof and gazed at the stars.  He had almost imagined himself alone with her.  An involuntary smile lit up his face.  That had been a perfect evening.

"Peter?" asked Samuel.  
"Come back to me." Peter said, his face showing he was deep in thought.  
"Randall?"  
"That's easy!  Fighting Meredith and stamping her into the floor!" he roared with laughter as he rocked back, hugging his knees.

Orsino was surprised to find how awkward he felt at the mention of her name.  He hadn't started to properly process how he felt about the news of her death.  It was still sinking in.  Indeed, he was trying to bury that side of his nature in order to focus on protecting the mages he travelled with.  Would he have liked to have killed Meredith?  He couldn't honestly say but he found the more that he thought of it, the more the fires in his belly were stoked and the more his anger simmered inside him.  Yes, he believed that he would have liked it very much.

"Iselle?"  
"I think it would have to be sitting in front of a roaring fire somewhere, with a good book, and a glass of Antivan red wine."  
"And what would the book be on?" Samuel asked with enthusiasm.  Orsino was hardly less eager to find out.  
"An adventure story.  Being trapped for such a long time would make anyone want to explore the world."

It was good, he had to admit, and he did like reading.  Varric had once offered to let him read one of his stories.  Orsino didn't know anything about the books but the dwarf had always argued for them well.  The thought of escaping the Gallows had always eaten at him as well.  He had resisted the urge but it had always been there.  Grand adventures were for those the bards wrote about.  Iselle glanced up at him nervously, hardly daring to keep his eye once he had it.  He smiled at her, trying to make her feel at ease.  Her shoulders dropped and he watched the stress fall out of her.  Gratefully she returned the smile but tenfold.

"Peter?  Do you have an idea to rival that?" Samuel prompted again.  
"I wonder." he said, hugging his knees and looking at Orsino.  "I never saw you happiest than when we gathered in the library, discussing politics and magic."  
"The few times we were allowed to gather all together." Orsino pointed out with a knowing smile.  Peter smiled and bobbed his head with a shrug.  
"There was always a ring of steel guarding us," Iselle interjected with, "but they were good times."  
"So which is it then?" piped up the eager voice of Samuel.

Orsino thought.  Fighting Meredith had been part and parcel of his daily life in the circle.  Finally besting her would have been good but ultimately a selfish act that would have denied those he had fought for their peace and justice.  A quiet evening of solitude away from the roar of the Gallows would have been heavenly.  However, seeing those under him engaged in lively, and sometimes aggressive, debate always made him happiest.  He supposed that out of the three choices, it would have been that one.

"Peter gets the next drink." he announced.  
"I was on the mark?" he exclaimed happily.  
"It was the best choice out of the three." he smiled affably.  
"So what would have been your perfect evening then?" John asked.  
"I don't know." Orsino shrugged.  "I never really got the chance to think about those kind of luxuries.  I was always working."

John turned to look at Peter who was confirmed the statement by nodding his head.

"You never had an evening off?" he turned back and asked incredulously.  
"We were prisoners, John.  We rarely got to be ourselves, let alone relaxed." Orsino told him plainly.  John's face twisted as he fought to try and understand what that had meant.  "I was very busy being First Enchanter of a huge Circle.  Lots of people always needing me." he carried on.    
"Would you spend this perfect evening alone then?"

Orsino paused for just long enough for the wrong message to insinuated.  A chorus of laughter rose up around the fire.  John raised his eyebrows with an impressed smirk.  Randall burst into laughter that he'd barely been able to contain and Peter grinned, giggling to himself.  Iselle seemed surprised at his lack of response but it was the mischievous look on Samuel's face that made Orsino question why everyone was laughing.  There came an inevitable sense of embarrassment as his face fell.  The tip of his ears and his cheeks flushed.  Opening his eyes, he looked round the fireplace at those sat there laughing at him and shook his head benevolently.  He opened his mouth to defend himself but John spoke up.

"No, no, First Enchanter.  You've said quite enough!" he teased, slapping him on the shoulder.  He took the bottle off of Peter and proffered it to Orsino.  It was gratefully received and Orsino took a deep drink, eager to escape their knowing looks and friendly grins.

As the evening went on, the air cooled around them and as the fire burned lower and lower, the group sunk into friendly discussion.  John got up to search for more wood in the forest around them.  As Orsino watched him stumble about, talking to the pieces of wood that he had picked up, he wondered how much of the rum he had taken.  The chatter around the fire was taking on a slightly less-guarded air.  It was wonderful as the leader to see the team relaxing.  Iselle and Randall were laughing together about something.  She was talking to Randall at close quarters in the most animated way.  Every so often, she would sit back, gasping at some aspect of a story that was hidden from him.  From the way Randall was looking at her, he seemed entranced with the woman.  There was a gleam in his eye as he drew near to her ear to whisper something.  Should Orsino warn Iselle?  No, that was their business.

As the haze of alcohol settled within him, Orsino indulged and let his mind wander.  Naturally it led to the past days and weeks.  So much had happened that he had not fully been able to contemplate it fully.  Always being on the move and never allowing his brain to stop, to sit, and to think was a harsh way to live.  He had had to be reactionary.  His life seemed to be about survival but hadn't it always been so?  First the alienage, then the Gallows, and now this?  What would it be if he stopped?  If he managed to achieve everything he wanted and just ... stopped.  What would drive him?  He tried to list what drove him now.  The protection of his mages was first and foremost.  He had almost raised them and watched them grow into adulthood.  He was their father, their protector, their leader.  And what was he doing?  Leading them into a dance that would involve almost certain death, but hadn't he done so already?  On the trip over the mountains there were those that had fallen.  As he saw their pallid, frozen faces before his eyes, he grimaced involuntarily.  And what for?  So he could punish a man whose crime was to react against the injustices that he himself had railed against all his life.  The similarity hit him squarely but Orsino stopped his thoughts cold almost as soon as they'd started.  He and Anders were different.  He would not have blown up the Chantry to send a message.  Not all mages were criminals, that was true, but in the instant that that mage had blown up the chantry, he had turned himself into one.  With one killing blow, he had rang the death knell for all the mages in Kirkwall.  And that, Orsino could not forgive.  As he looked up and around the campfire, for a moment he could not reconcile the panic in his heart and mind with the idyll in front of him.  His mind blazed with the horror of that one moment whilst at the same time, he saw that Iselle laughed with Samuel, Peter talked happily with John, and Randall smiled whilst staring at the fire.  This was how the lives of mages should have played out but instead, throughout Thedas, they were fighting for their lives.  

Orsino shifted uncomfortably and knew he needed to move away, if only for a moment.  Rising silently, he walked away from the fire and through the brush to the riverbank.  The moonlight turned the scenery into a monochrome view, and most certainly was not conducive to calming down.  He needed to see the blues of the water and the greens of the flora, but instead his eyes met the harshness of the blacks, whites and greys.  Scenes of fire and destruction were playing out before him and inside his mind.  The smell of the ash and smoke was choking him again.  He was trapped.  His heartrate was climbing as he fought against reliving the madness.  This panic was not like him.  Forcefully, he directed his mind to search for hooks that would calm him down and bring him back to the happy mood he had been in moments before.  A scant breeze brushed the drying leaves overhead but it was more of a hissing sound than a soothing and soft _shhhhhhh_.  Fighting against a rising tide, he sought something else.  The soothing sound of the river was the panacea he needed.  Slowly he forced his mind to obey the slow rhythm of the waves.  He inhaled deeply through his nose.  The sharp tang of the water pierced his anxiety and gave him something else to fixate on.  The smell cut through whatever madness he was seeing and the sounds were soothing him.  Piece by piece, bit by bit, his mind started to return.  His fingers trembled as they uncurled from the clenched fists they had drawn unknowingly into.  It was all so unfair.  The whole situation.  He wanted to find Anders and beat him into the ground for what he had done, but to do that he had to take those people he cared unendingly for into a city that teemed with their mortal enemies.  If he could have struck off on his own, he would have done.  That thought took root for only a second before he discounted it as meaningless.  His team would have followed him, he could see that, or have been left on their own to fend for themselves.  Something none of them had ever done.  At least he remembered the alienage and needing to stay alive at all costs.  They wouldn't be able to do that.  No, he could not leave them - ever.

The cold air came in across the black water of the river and pricked at Orsino's face.  It caused him to shiver suddenly.  That compulsion forced him suddenly out of the melancholy and made him almost smirk despondently.  It was a moot point.  He would never leave them, he knew that, and they would never leave him.  As soon as his mind grasped that, his rational side directed his feet to return to the fire and reassure them that he hadn't in fact walked off into the night.  Shaking himself down, he flexed his fingers, rolled his neck, and loosened his shoulders.  He took a last deep breath to shake off the vestiges of whatever stress had led him to the water's edge, and exhaled slowly.  He told himself that he was better and so strode forward, back to camp.  He sat back down quietly and when handed the bottle of rum, he took it with an acted grace and a painted smile.  A small sip was all he had, determined that he would not succumb to the madness again.

*

It was many hours later in the darkness of the early morning that Orsino was awakened by a strange sound.  He stirred and blinked, trying to clear the sleep from his mind and work out who, or what, was making the noise.  It was low but he was fairly sure it was the sound of someone crying.  From the muffled tone to it, whoever it was was trying to keep their misery quiet.  Slowly he sat up.  A brief feeling of regret clouded him as a headache borne of the alcohol announced itself.  The fire was burning low but he could still see those who slept around it.  Peter sat, staring into the fire, and his arms wrapped around his middle.  As soon as he saw that Orsino was awake, he scrubbed at his eyes with his sleeves, embarrassed that he had been caught.  Peter had been on watch so it was expected that he would be awake, but not crying.  This disturbed Orsino greatly and he rose quietly.  Stepping over the bodies that through drink slept where they had fallen, he made his way to where Peter sat on a log.  No-one else was awake, he could hear that in their breathing, or in the case of Randall and John, their snoring.  He sat down gingerly on the log next to the boy who by now was sniffling.  Over all his years at the Gallows, it was not the first time Orsino had found a young mage in floods of tears.  His paternal side took over almost immediately and he wrapped an arm around the lad's shoulder.  The action which had been meant as a comfort caused fresh tears to fall down the boy's face.  His face fell into his hands and he wept, again subduing the noise for his fellow mages' sake.  After a few minutes of tears and silence, he lifted his head.  

"Do you know how old I am, Orsino?" Peter asked softly.  
"You're eighteen." came the gentle reply.  
"I had a nightmare." he announced quietly with a flick of his hand, embellishing the word to cover the embarrassment he felt.  
"It's okay."  
"Eighteen, and I had a nightmare." he moaned as he rested his forehead in his hand.  
"What was it about?" Orsino asked carefully, conscious the boy was still evidently distressed.  The lad paused and looked at the floor.  He sniffed and then wiped his eye with his sleeve.  With a low voice, he replied to Orsino's question.  
"My mother." 

He now understood.  Peter had never been able to get over the events that had led to his being at the Kirkwall Circle.  Indeed, it was distressing enough just to know the particulars.  It had taken a while but Orsino had managed, just by being there to listen, to get Peter to open up about what had happened.

"Twelve years and I can still see her face, Orsino.  Twelve years and my mind can still _smell_ her.  In my nightmare, I could still smell her clothes.  I was ripped from her and all because I lit a fire in the market place with my magic for a tradesman."  
"Was it the exact events?"   
"Pretty much, give a take a few blows.  She took a little longer to find me tonight though.  It seemed a little more intense also.  Maybe the rum played a part." he grimaced as he lifted his head.  He kept a small silence before declaring softly, "I can't stand them."  
"The dreams?  Are they still happening regularly?"  
"Yes.  More so recently."  
"You have been under a great deal of stress."

Peter began to rock very gently.  

"Why do I have to dream?"  
"The Fade allows us to dream."  
"Yes, the Fade." Peter sneered.  "That place of screaming madness that subjects me to visions of my mother." he muttered, before looking up at him and asking softly, "Remind me why we need it?"  
"Without our connection to the Fade, we cannot exist.  Our magic would be dead to us."

Peter sighed through his nose and continued to stare at the floor.  

"Indeed." he mewled.  
"These dreams are a memory to your past.  It is something to fight for.  I know you can't bring your mother back but if you wish to return to Rivain and search for your previous life, you are welcome."  
"Are you pushing me away?!" Peter demanded sadly.  
"No, no!  You are welcome to stay.  You are free now.  You have choice.  I was reminding you of it.  We saw Derani and Garras exercise that right.  I merely wished to give you the same courtesy." Orsino explained, a patient half-smile lifting his mouth.  
"I do not wish to leave."

Relief flooded Orsino.  He wanted to keep his group with him at all times to protect them.  He hadn't taken the departure of Derani and Garras well.  As he thought over what must be happening to them now, coils of apprehension wrapped around his mind and tightened.  With a mental kick, he forced his mind to calm down.  They had made their choice.  However, that didn't stop him worrying about them.  A silence fell over the two of them.  Orsino glanced around the sleeping bodies as John shifted in his sleep.  A blessed relief came as his snoring stopped for a while.

"Orsino?" Peter asked quietly as he played with his fingers.  
"Yes?"  
"Do you feel guilty?"  
"Guilty?  About what?"  
"Getting out of there, out of Kirkwall."  
"What do you mean?  You feel guilty about those we left behind?"  
"I keep seeing the faces of my friends who I used to share a dormitory with.  They must be long dead by now, or else locked up again." Peter groaned.  
"Ah.  This is what you worry about?"  
"Don't you?"  
"Yes.  The mages in that tower were like my family." he said honestly.    
"Ten of us made it out, Orsino.   _Ten_.  And out of that number, there are only four left in our group.  I feel so ... _lost_ about that." 

Orsino was a man of many secrets.  He had needed to be to protect the work he had spent years building up.  But here was a young man who needed the reassurance only close confidence could bring.  With a deep breath, he turned to the boy.  There was a confession that needed to be made.

"Peter?" Orsino prompted gently, causing him to lift his face.  "You weren't the only people I got out of the tower."

The boy's eyes whipped up to meet his.  There was shock there, to be sure, but confusion as well.

"What?"  
"Varric and I had been working for a long time to get people out.  You happened to be in  _my_ group, that's all.  I had senior enchanters taking small groups out through the docks.  Throughout the city, I had those loyal to the cause taking in a few.  There were some in the alienage taking in mages.  All told, we managed to save ... well, a lot more than just ten." he smiled compassionately.  
"Why didn't you tell us?" said a small voice drenched in relief.  
"Quite simply, in case we were caught." he smiled.  His eyes felt weary just revealing this information.  "If we were caught on the way out, then you could have been tortured to reveal their whereabouts.  Even knowing about their existence would have put them in danger, and those who hid them."  
"Orsino.  This ... this just makes me feel  _better_." he smiled, fresh tears beading in his eyes as he leaned his chin on his hands, hidden by bunched up sleeves.    
"Peter, we were all inmates of the Gallows.  There was no way I was going to leave them behind if I could."  
"But you didn't get all of them out?"  
"Some simply didn't want to go.  You knew who they were.  They were too scared to leave."

Peter sighed deeply through his nose as the revelation caused his eyes to be drawn to the fire again.  He stared past it, his mind on a great many things.  If Orsino was reading it right, and he thought he knew Peter pretty well, there was almost something else there.  It looked ever so much like ... jealousy.


	8. Chapter 8

With every step Orsino took, he knew he had made some form of mistake with the previous night's entertainment.  Every, single, step.  Each time his foot hit the floor, it caused his whole body to jolt which, unfortunately for him, included his head.  They walked along a narrow gully; high enough to keep the sun from finding them but low enough for the drizzle to soak them.  It made his clothes cling to him and run down into his eyes.  It was the kind of rain that made everything wet but never seemed to actually fall, just hang in the air.  The morning had greeted them with the inclement weather.  From the moment they had awoke with the drizzle on their faces to now, the rain had been ever present.  Sometimes blustery, sometimes fine, but always there.  The rock that Orsino clung on to was wet and slimy to touch and the ground underneath his boots was largely the same.  He took care not to slip.  Not that he could walk fast anyway.  The headache made him grouchy and as it jarred with every step, his progress was slow.  Today was turning out to be rotten.

The previous evening he had finally put his head down for sleep thinking that he had drunk only the bare minimum of rum.  Indeed he had felt nothing as his head touched the floor.  It was true testament to the potency of the spirit he had drunk that he now regretted making so bold a claim.  He sat up with the dawn light and groaned.  He knew he was older than the rest but still not as old as to feel hung over after what must have amounted to a glass' worth of alcohol.  As he ran his hands over his face, he felt the true dread of embarrassment.  He had persistently and sometimes aggressively told the group to be on their guard for anybody or anything that could land them in trouble.  And there he had been, in the middle of the group, drinking and being carefree.  He was appalled at his behaviour.  As his head swirled, he made a promise with himself.  A simple spell could have cleared his head but as a punishment for being so stupid and lax in his caution, he made a choice not to heal himself.  It would serve as a reminder to be more cautious in future.

Orsino had seen the empty bottle laying next to a gently snoring Samuel.  With a swift kick to his leg, borne of bitterness and a rapidly rising queasiness, the boatman was roughly awoken by Orsino's boot.  Iselle made Rivaini tea over a small fire that she had managed to conjure from the wet embers of the previous night's fire.  Orsino had been grateful for the hot drink to cling on to as the drizzle soaked through the travelling coat he wore.  He could easily have made himself both dry and warm but because of the irritable mood he had woken up in, he decided to keep the punishment.  It only served to heighten his resolve not to slip in his awareness again.

The others were in varying degrees of health.  Randall struck out in the front, bouncy and appearing to enjoy the rain.  Orsino fought to keep the irritation from rising too high.  Randall's youth and vitality made the young man into a target with Orsino's rapidly darkening mood.  He had obviously healed himself that morning.  His face lit up with every burst of rain that swept down the gully.  Peter followed behind, slightly less enthusiastic but no less healthy.  Iselle preceded the First Enchanter.  She had looked a little paler in the morning light but was surviving admirably.  There was no groaning from her, even though when Orsino talked to her she seemed reticent to talk.  He had a suspicion that she too was trying to not use her magic but instead wait out the headache and ill health.  John came next.  He had no such luxury of healing magic.  He had brushed aside any offer of help from the mages that morning.  Evidently his mistrust of their powers was still running deep and raw.  He had travelled with them for several days but Orsino suspected that it would be much, much longer before he was comfortable with them using their magic freely around him.  He was good enough with them but occasionally, Orsino would see a look of deep apprehension cloud his eyes before he shook it off.  John was not so lucky with his health this morning.  For the third time since they had started walking, Orsino heard him wretch.  Turning to see if he was okay, Orsino saw that the large brute of a man had stuck his arm out to stop himself falling but his head still fell limply forward from his shoulders and he stared at the ground.  The rain made his wild hair clump together, simultaneously sticking out from his head and plastered to his face.  He was a pitiful sight.  There was power in the muscles of his shoulders and yet he swayed slightly as he stared at the ground.  Orsino watched as a wave of convulsion started in his stomach, ending in a vile swathe of pink liquid erupting from his mouth.  It hit the stone floor and splashed back onto his boots.  The sight was enough but after a few moments, in such an enclosed space as the one they were in, the smell also greeted Orsino.  It turned his stomach, which was already delicate.

"Please let me heal you." Orsino said hastily.

Without looking up, and still clinging to the rock, John shook his head slowly.

"No.  No magic." he moaned.

He drew in a deep breath and stood tall, his eyes purposefully wide but his sallow skin belaying the pain he was in.  This was evidently why John had insisted on walking at the back of the queue.  Orsino's face pinched in and he knew his eyes were showing how stupid he thought John's choice was but he turned back to the others who walked ahead of him.  With a grim determination, he carried on.  Orsino sighed pointedly through his nose, but turned and followed the slow moving train of people up the thin gully.  

Everything about the morning seemed to be making the going slow.  The geography, although rocky, would have been no problem in dry weather.  However the pressing rain that swept down the ravine made the rocks underneath their feet slippy.  At one point the faces of the cliff walls pinched and almost touched.  Precipitous walls of granite swept close together and gave no handholds.  Orsino's thin body made it through easily but John's muscly frame struggled.  He swore and winced as the stone scraped him but made it through.  The slope of the walk was increasing and the rocks becoming a little smoother, making a difficult climb even more problematic.  As they tried to scale a particularly sharp point of the path, a small cry was all the warning that Iselle gave as her feet went from under her.  Instinctively, Orsino's arms shot out to catch her and she landed clumsily against him.  Gently he helped her back to her feet, a smile warming his face for the first time that morning.

"Thank you." she said shyly, her blue eyes glancing around in embarrassment.  Her blonde hair had become brown with the rain and stuck to her head.  She tried to scrape it back from her face.  She smiled briefly back at him, catching his eyes as she did so.  Orsino blinked.  In his chest, his heart gave a few short, sharp beats as he looked at her.  It was strange but here in the bottom of a rain-soaked ravine, he couldn't believe he'd never realised how beautiful Iselle was.  Realising he was staring, he gave her a polite smile and held out his hand to help her climb further.  Gratefully she took it and made her way up the rocks.  Mortification flooded him.  He was too old to think like that.  Quickly he put the thought to the back of his head and carried on.  He scrambled up himself and was pleased to see that the way was becoming a proper path, even if it was strewn with rock chippings and pebbles.  It would make walking a little easier.

After half an hour, the path finally surfaced into more forest.  The canopy provided an instant and blessed relief from the rain which had now turned into fat drops instead of the fine mist.  Randall was acting as outpost a little further down the path towards a wide bend.  He stood behind the trees, concealed by the large leaves of a bush.  He glanced over as they emerged and gave a signal to them that it was fine to continue.  John arrived a few minutes after the others.  His power was in the raw potency of his thick arms and short bursts of furious energy.  Hauling in huge nets full of writhing fish had honed that strength over the years.  However, from the panting he gave as he arrived with the others, he was not used to scrambling up rocks.  He wore a look of pride that he had managed the climb, but irritation that others, younger and fitter than he, had almost bounced up them.  His jaw was set with a steely determination not to let himself down.  Orsino made sure all of them were okay before nodding over towards where Randall stood.  

"Samuel said that this path should continue for another hour, in some fashion or other." the young lad tried to confirm with him as he approached.  A single nod was all that Orsino's head could afford.  Up in the forest, the wind was blowing a little.  The bracing air was helping to cut through the fog in his head but as he twisted to smile at the young mage, the pain was still shooting up his neck and he winced.  A half nod emerged with a solid grimace for good measure.  Randall smiled back bemusedly.

"Why do you not at least clear your head?" he cocked his head back and asked.  
"Because I need to teach myself a lesson." Orsino replied irritably.  Randall shrugged with a disbelieving smirk and carried on down the path.

The trail through the forest took over two hours in the end.  The weather had made the going slow and they picked their way over pools of water and around swathes of mud.  For a short while, it followed a swollen woodland stream that cascaded over hidden rocks and swam quickly towards lower ground.  The group trudged on, silent as they tried to move around the remains of a tree long since struck by lightning.  A mighty bough had split where struck and hung limply by its master's side.  The path the group walked passed under this natural bridge.  

At long last, the weather began to soften.  The rain petered out over the course of half an hour and it was with relief that through the tree branches, Orsino began to glimpse patches of clear sky.  The wind still blew a little but a quick magick dried most of his clothes and allowed him to stay warm.  Turning back to John, he simply looked at the man who was starting to shiver.

"Please, let me dry you.  You will become ill if you don't and you cannot afford to let that happen.  We will never reach Tantervale."

With a growl that he could barely supress, John at last nodded his head.  His eyes fixed sternly on Orsino in silent threat and he folded his arms.  It was a simple spell that Orsino performed easily and when it was done, he could see that John longed to smile.  His mouth was set firm but there was a shine of relief in his eyes.  As he set off, he grumbled his thanks.

Further they walked.  By now it was mid to late morning.  Thankfully the headache was ebbing slowly away.  The fresh air, now devoid of rain, was helping to clear the hangover.  Indeed John was walking with more of a purpose to his step, as was Iselle.  Orsino's cheeks flushed as he looked up at her again.  Angrily he turned to stare at the road ahead, furious with himself.  She was a mage that he had rescued from Kirkwall.  Furthermore, he was much older.  He didn't know exactly how old he was but from his educated guessing over the years, he suspected near to forty-five.  That made him twice her age.  He shivered with disgust at himself.

Samuel had told them that the walk would take a day.  It would take them across country to a small settlement where they could pick up a road, possibly a cart into the city.  Orsino didn't like the fact that they would be near other people but he could see no other way of getting to Cael fast enough.  His only hope was that the Templars had to make a long journey back as well.  John had seemed to think that the Templars would take their time getting back, instead swooping in on other villages and towns in the area before starting the journey back to the city.  That gave Orsino and his mages a window of time to get there.  Orsino had a small bag of coins and Samuel had added to that a little.  They could afford a night in a bed and possibly transport to the city but anything else was a problem.

An ache was starting in Orsino's head.  Only a slight one but enough to put him on edge.  Possibly it was hunger, but he didn't think so.  Now that he was feeling better, his stomach was starting to growl.  However, he could just sense that it wasn't that at all.  

"Randall?" he called out.  
"Yes?" the young mage returned, circling back to walk next to Orsino.  "What's up?"  
"Can you sense anything?"  
"Like what?  Anything malevolent?"  
"Yes."  
"No.  Can you?"  
"Just ... an itch.  Keep an extra eye out."  
"Of course."

He picked up the pace and headed back to the head of the line.  Over the next twenty minutes, Orsino couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.  They were now walking along carttracks that was leading them up another slight incline.  This puzzled Orsino.  They were deep in the forest now.  There had been no sign of loggers in the area, no sounds either of timbering.  Then why would the tracks be there?  They were not deeply cut so it couldn't be a well used thoroughfare, nor could it be from heavily laden carts.  There were no farmers in the area, and woodsmen and hunters wouldn't have used wheeled vehicles.  It was most peculiar.  He searched the forest around them but couldn't see anything.  His ears were pricking up, listening for anything from the woods but he still wasn't happy.

"Let us move back into the forest.  I'm not comfortable being so exposed." he called to the group.

With a confused murmur rippling through the group, they did as they were told and moved to the more covered ground that ran alongside the tracks.  Orsino's eyes flashed to the top of the road and where it met the brow of the hill.  Something was very wrong here.  Very wrong indeed.  With a worried feeling, he sent a message out to the group to be silent as they moved through the brush.  The ground sloped upwards and Orsino moved to the front, conscious that he wanted to be the first mage to be attacked if there was anything.

As they made the top of the tree-covered hill, he held out his hand for them to stop.  His ears had picked up on the faint murmurs of voices from up ahead.  There was something wrong with the way the Veil moved around this place as well.  It felt ... abused, somehow.  As he glanced at the faces of the group, he could see that they knew something was wrong too.

"What do you want us to do?" John whispered.  
"I'm going to the top of the hill to have a look.  I need you to be vigilant."

Randall nodded determinedly and Iselle turned her head to scan the forest around them.  

"We don't even know if these are hostile but I can just sense that something is wrong." Orsino added.  
"I can too." Peter added.  "Something is sucking the mana in the area.  Only faintly, but it is there."  The other mages nodded their heads in solemn agreement.  John's face grew stern  
"That can only mean Templars." Randall spat under his breath.  
"True, it could.  But it could mean a great many other things." Orsino stated, trying to calm the fear that he could feel building. "Stay here, and make yourselves scarce."

Orsino looked towards the top of the hill.  There _could_ be nothing on the other side of the mound.  There could be smugglers that had stopped for a break.  If Samuel used the route then it was probable that others did.  However, there was a tingle in the air that there was somehow something more just over the ridge, something malevolent.  It was almost palpable.  He set off quietly.  Behind him he could hear the faint sounds of rustling leaves as his group moved to cover themselves and hide.  Glancing behind him, he could see that they had managed it admirably.  A smile of pride lifted the corner of his mouth as he looked over all of them, but it fell again as with grim determination, he turned back to his target.

Slowly, quietly, he crept up the bank and finally reached the brow.  Dropping to his knees, he went forward and crawled the last few feet.  The soil here was still wet and slick from the morning's downpour but there was nothing he could do about it.  The dank smell of rotting vegetation greeted him harshly as he moved silently over the floor.  A memory from the alienage leapt unbidden into his mind; he had crawled over the floor of a garden bed to pluck some herbs, and had been paid for the privilege.  That was unheard of for an elf.  He couldn't remember who had paid him the few coppers, nor whose garden he had invaded, but he remembered it was a large manor house with big windows.  Pushing the sudden memory down lest it distract him further, he kept moving.  The bushes that grew all over the wood easily hid him and from under one of them, he had an unbroken view of a small cave opposite to where he lay.

A single man stood with his back to Orsino's hidden position.  His face screwed up a little in confusion.  The man stood holding a long staff, shaped and styled to finish with a brutal spiked head.  The tailoring, the rich material, the black wood of the staff, the arrogant bearing of the wearer; this was a Tevinter mage.  What was this man doing here in the middle of the Free Marches?  Orsino knew enough of the insignia and clothing of the Magisterium to know that this was an apprentice, not yet a full magister.  The rank didn't matter though.  The man stood evidently waiting for something, staring into the blackness of the cave entrance, barely moving.  Only the fingers wrapped around the tall, wooden staff flickered, drumming slightly on the dark shaft.  This mage was irritated.

Tevinter was hundreds of miles away, separated from this place by the Pillars, the Minanter, and even the Silent Plains.  This was the second encounter with the Magisterium on this journey.  Confusion piled on Orsino but as he fought over it, something began to emerge from the cave.  His eyes watched, hungry for more information, as the front end of a cart trundled out of the dark.  His eyes narrowed further as he saw the beaten down figures of dwarf slaves pushing the barrows into the light.  They blinked as they came into the light, one even shielding his eyes from the harshness of the day.  Their faces were marred by cuts and bruises and one wore ragged bandages around one fist.  As they looked at each other, Orsino could only see exhaustion and disorientation.  They didn't even flinch when they saw who greeted them was.  These slaves had been worked until near death.  

The mage had stiffened in his posture as he watched them emerge.  His shoulders were set high with malice and his head tipped forward.  Orsino did not need to see the mage's face to know that it was thunderous.  He watched as the unknown man stalked forward, tapping the end of his staff sharply on the floor.  As he bent over the cart, a hand came up to stroke a neatly trimmed beard and he paused to assess the contents.  A hand dipped down into it and pulled up some of the contents.  Orsino's jaw clenched with fear as he saw what it was; processed lyrium.  It couldn't be raw - there was no way he could have touched it otherwise - which meant there were many more slaves down in this mine.  Some were needed to simply cut the mineral from the rock but some were needed to turn this into something the outside world could touch and use.  The distinct colour told Orsino everything.  Suddenly his mind was running: why was there a lyrium mine all the way out here?; why were there dwarven slaves?; and why in the Maker's name was there a Tevinter mage standing watch over it all?  He wondered that the first of his questions had been answered with the third.  The Tevinter mage had founded his mine all the way out here precisely _because_ it was far removed from everything.  Tevinter would need fresh supplies of lyrium all the time.  Orsino had no idea about lyrium distribution with the Imperium itself but he knew the demand for it to be high.  If they were here, then it _had_ to be an illegal mine.  That would explain the slaves.  A brief thought flittered over his head that somehow Tevinter had secured the rights from Tantervale somehow.   But why?  Why would a city like Tantervale allow a foreign, sometimes hostile, force onto their ground?  It was much more likely that this was an illegal and unknown operation.  One thing he did realise was that the proximity to raw lyrium made it almost impossible that more mages would have been hiding inside the cave.  This mage was almost certainly on his own.

A noise came from the forest that put that idea out straight away.  Orsino watched in horror as a fully armoured Templar emerged from the forest.  His throat suddenly went dry as he watched how the mage would react.  Indeed his own heart was beating loudly within his chest.  Just the sight of the insignia on his chest made him feel dizzy.  They were escaped mages and had run straight towards a Templar.  He listened for any hostilities and waited for them to see each other and react.  Any second now.

But it never came.  In fact, there was a moment that Orsino would recall later with absolute clarity; it was a moment where his stomach started to fall.  The two weren't going to fight because they knew each other.  Worse still, they were working together.  What in Thedas was happening here?  The two weren't friendly but they were polite, almost professional.

"And they won't escape down to the deep roads?" the mage asked in a deep, slow drawl.  A voice that dripped with honey and lies oozed from his throat.  
"Those that remain are being guarded by my men.  Be not afraid, the dusters will not let them escape.  Not while you are paying them, anyway."  
"Is that a threat?" the mage asked, his voice tinged with malice.  Orsino wondered what threat the mage could offer back.  Any power would simply be dissipated by the Templar.  However, Orsino knew with unparalleled clarity that the mage would have something else with which to hold over the Templar.  

Orsino knew he had to tell the rest of them so with the dexterity he had not exercised since he was a child, he crept backwards towards where they waited.  His eyes were focused and his mind ready as he walked silently down the slope towards them.  It had to be silent through his skill alone.  He couldn't have silenced them through magic as both the Tevinter mage and the Templar would have felt it immediately.  His concentration was so high that when he reached the group, it was a few moments before he could talk properly.  He couldn't shake the tension that he felt.  As he whispered to them what he had seen, he saw the same spark light up the eyes of the mages; the spark of fear.  Some tried to hide it, some could not, but they all felt it.  It rippled through Orsino too but he buried it far down.  Now was not the time to panic.  With silent gestures and pointed fingers, John asked if there was only one.  Orsino could do nothing but shrug his shoulders.  There was no way they could be further down in the lyrium mine without turning to madness, but he hadn't known about the one that had emerged from the surrounding forest.  Maybe there _were_ others out there.

"Come on then!" Peter whispered, turning to go.  Orsino stayed stuck to where he stood.  The listless eyes of the dwarves wouldn't leave him, and he couldn't fight a malignant tide of enmity.  It was bubbling to the surface with quickening pace.  He wanted to turn and fight them, to scrape out their souls and leave them to rot in a forgotten part of the forest. "Orsino!  We need to go."  
"No, we can't." he hissed.    
"What do you mean?"  
"He means that we have to save those dwarves." Randall said, moving forward to support the First Enchanter.  Orsino's brow furrowed slightly.  He hadn't expected support from that quarter.  Glancing over at the young man, he saw that his shoulders hunched forward and his eyes shone with a dark light.  There was something else that Randall needed here.  Orsino nodded at the man though.  
"We cannot leave them to such an awful fate."  
"Well, stop for a copper, stop for a gold, as my mother used to say." John confirmed quietly with a wild smile.  The realisation crept up Orsino's spine at why the fisherman was so ready to take part.  
"Iselle?  Peter?  Are you willing to take part?"

Iselle nodded readily.  Peter watched her nervously but slowly he nodded after she had done.

"Okay, here's what we'll do.  We work on the assumption that there are more Templars that we don't know about.  John, you need to take him down as he will dispel anything we have to fight him with." Orsino whispered.  John turned to look around at the forest floor and reached down to pick up a sturdy branch.  It wouldn't work against the swing of a sword but it was better than nothing.  "We have to attack them both at once.  As soon as we start to summon mana, they will be able to tell we're here.  I will freeze the two of them.  Randall and Peter, break him with rocks.  Iselle, you and I will do the same with the Templar.  John, you need to run to the Templar and make sure he is dead." Orsino told him, nodding towards the branch that he grasped maliciously.  "Are we all agreed?"  With varying degrees of acceptance, they all nodded their agreement.  "Now, if you make any sound climbing this hill, we are finished.  I would rather take an hour and reach the peak silently, then ruin it in five minutes."

With a final glance round at their faces, he smiled confidently in the hope of bolstering their spirits and turned back towards the brow.


	9. Chapter 9

As he knelt behind the bush out of sight, Orsino quickly ran over the plan in his head.  It seemed simple enough but there was always something to think about, or worry about.  What if these two had some unknown form of power that Orsino hadn't come across?  The mage had his staff as well, something none of the four of them did.  It made everything so much easier.  Aside from the Tevinters they had fought at the pilgrimage site, he had never encountered them properly before.  He felt confidence his powers were enough to fight against them, theoretically of course, but his problem would come if their numbers were bolstered.  What if these dusters ran up to fight alongside the mage and Templar?  He itched to search for his power, to feel it wrap around him, but he couldn't.  Because they were so close, if he had reached to tap his mana, they would have been able to sense it.  

Orsino felt something else; excitement.  It was in the thrill of a fight when his magic could fully be unleashed.  There were no limits, no restrictions.  In fighting for his life, he would discharge all the fury he contained.  In all of the battles in Kirkwall, he had experienced a profound connection to the world and all the power that flowed through it.  For so many years his hands had been tied by the Templars.  He had been held prisoner by his power but the gutteral rage of fighting was all he needed.  It was what he longed for.

He and Iselle waited together, crouched down and hidden from sight.  As he watched, she tied her hair back with a small ribbon, a look of serious thought casting her eyes to some other place.  She looked up and searched through the branches to where her prey waited.  The two of them would take down the Tevinter mage.  Her eyes narrowed with icy efficiency and her mouth pressed thinly as she contemplated the problem at hand.  Randall and Peter were hidden in their bolt hole, ready to act.  John had crawled off through the undergrowth to be as close to the Templar as possible.  So far, everyone had been near silent.  Everyone was primed to act on his mark.  Orsino listened carefully to the forest around him.  He could hear the wind blowing through the trees and all it brought to him were the normal sounds of the forest.  The only signs of life he could hear were the soft mewlings of the dwarf slaves as they were allowed to take a breather.  The Templar and the mage were talking but too far away and too quiet for Orsino to make out anything distinct.  He had to wait for the right moment.  If the two were close together, the two spells crashing together would only enhance the other.  However, their proximity to the dwarves would expose the miners to the magic.  If they moved even a little away, he could tailor the spell for just the two malignants.   

He only had to wait a few minutes.  The Templar shouted something at the largest of the dwarves and cracked him around the head.  The miner pitched forward and held his head, but he was trained enough not to shout out.  The group of exhausted miners dwarves quickly back to the cave entrance and disappeared.  The Templar moved in slowly and stood just over the threshold, half in the shadows of the rock.  Orsino's breathing became shallow and quickened as the anticipation of the fight took him over.  He stared at the Tevinter and saw relaxed shoulder but a bored sneer on his face.  After a few moments of stillness, the Knight turned his back on the cave and turned around.  He would leave it a few moments for the dwarves to get far enough away.

"Iselle?" he whispered.  She glanced over but kept silent.  "Are you ready?"

A slight smile accompanied the soft nod.  

"One ..." Orsino's eyes drifted close and he imagined the moves he would have to twist himself into.  "Two ..."  His fingers flexed as he began to get ready and the rush of excitement began to build.  He gave over to the readiness he felt as his body contorted itself ready to spring.

"Three!"

In one clean movement, he reached for his mana and weaved the spell into existence, thrusting it forward as he sprang from his hiding place.  Iselle was right beside him and he felt the flow of mana from her as well.  It rushed before them like the dark herald of a storm.  The Tevinter's face had only the split of a moments before the ice prison closed around him and the Templar.  The Knight had fared slightly better.  He had managed to start the pull of his own magic in response before the cold had taken him.  Orsino could feel the ebb of power as it swirled towards him, like a hole that magic was being sucked into.  However the knight was stuck fast.  Across the other side of the glade, a bolt of pure stone crashed from the undergrowth and hurtled through the air, breaking upon the two prisoners like the hammer of a giant.  Randall and Peter were fast on the spell's heels as they jumped from their hiding places.  The sound was immense as the rock shattered the ice prison.  The Templar was flung back against the wall of rock next to the cave.  He slid down it in a clatter of steel but groaned as he pushed himself up to standing.  A stream of Orlesian cursewords erupted.  He reached to put his helmet on but a bolt of ice flung from Iselle knocked it from his hands and it clattered far away from his reach.  His sword was wrung from its scabbard and he assumed an aggressive stance with the speed of a whirlwind.  His shoulders up, he looked around for a target to erupt his fury upon.

The Magister, however, simply stood and with his arms spread against the assault.  His head tipped forward, he looked around for the reason he had been encased in ice.  A single trickle of blood that wept from his nose was the only outward sign that he had been hit.  Writhing his whole body into sudden movement, Orsino could see that mana swirled around him as his hands moved through a dance long-practiced.  Orsino instinctively threw out a wave of protective spells and the onslaught from the Tevinter broke upon Orsino's shield.  He staggered with the impact but he held his spell firmly.  From the far side of the glade, Randall and Peter were beginning to form a joint attack.  A ball of blue energy was beginning, hovering in the air as steam hissed in the air around it.  The air shimmered with the power wrapped inside the magic.  As it soared across the open space, the mage twisted his body to face it.  With majestic skill, a simple flick of his hand saw it break upon him as would a spring breeze, his fingers wrapped arrogantly around the tall, dark staff at his side.  Orsino could see what the problem was immediately; the staff.  He needed to fight his way to the mage and target that.

A cry to his side announced that John had engaged with the Templar.  Orsino allowed himself a very quick glance.  The big, brutal man ducked and weaved under the swing of the sword with a surprising agility.  John had found a branch more suitable for the task.  The thick bough walloped into the shoulder plate of the Templar and caused him to stagger backwards, his feet dancing around to steady himself.  He managed to regain his footing and began a series of blows that forced John to scramble backwards.

"Iselle, help John with the Templar." he ordered.  She peeled off and immediately started to throw what she could at the Knight.  However, the spells were pulled into the Void as he sucked the energy out of them.  Still she kept on.  "Randall!  Peter!  Keep him distracted."

Arcana crackled around Orsino's weaving fingers as he pressed ahead.  Fire volleys, ice storms, bolts of electricity; he pulled his mana from inside him and moved through the motions that would form the arsenal of spells that he knew.  This man was a being who had been allowed to practice his magic all his life, and he had his staff with him.  This would be beyond difficult normally but Orsino was unafraid.  This wasn't going to be difficult - this was going to be fun.  Shooting his arms forward, he felt wave after wave of bright magic fly from his hands.  There was no respite, no let-up; it was just a pure surge of power.  And it felt incredible.  He felt alive.   A smile broke across his face as he let go and gave over to the raw side of his power.  His heart beat loudly with every spell that he shot out.  He planted his foot on the ground and a fireball erupted from his palms.  Another step and it was a wave of freezing power.  The Tevinter mage was forced to retreat and defend, gritting his teeth as he forced the staff into a form of shield, putting it between him and the spells.  Orsino could now see him for what he was.  No longer the arrogant mage, this was now a puppet who had been sent on a child's errand.  His power was spread too thinly as he tried vainly to deal with the fighting behind him as well.  From the snarl on his face, and the fear in his eyes, it was obvious that he was waning fast.

From deep within himself, Orsino called for a surge of mana that rose through him like a tidal wave.  As it came, he fused the defiant power into a pattern that would shatter the mage's staff.  It was a bold move but it would render the mage vulnerable.  With a snarl, he shot the power out of himself and it screamed across the glade.  The mage raised his hand to defend himself but the spell wrapped itself around the staff perfectly.  Orsino rent back his outstretched hand and with a crash, the staff broke into kindling in the Tevinter's hand.  A scream of fury echoed around the forest.

" _I will break you!_ " he bellowed. 

Orsino braced himself for a retaliation and it descended upon him rapidly.  Electricity lifted his hair and he could feel the rising of power.  Orsino only had a few moments before the full force of the storm would descend, in which time the mage was bringing forth mana to throw at the group.  Glowing white power wrapped around his hands as the mage roared.  Orsino tried to catch the pattern and dissipate it before it could do anything, but the charge build-up and the weaving hands of the Tevinter made it impossible.   _Think fast,_  he told himself.His eyes whipped up as the answer came to him.  The mage's arms went through motions Orsino was very familiar with.  Orsino reciprocated and summoned his own magic, holding it just on the edge of his fingers.  It was only a few seconds he had to wait but he watched keenly for the right moment.  As the Tevinter reached the peak of his summoning, Orsino's hands shot out.  A bubble of ice formed around the man, trapping him with his own fury.  Purple clouds hissed and sang inside the prison, roiling and heaving, and damning the mage to suffer immensely.  As the fog cleared from within the ice prison, all Orsino could see was the charred corpse of the former mage.

There wasn't time to triumph.  The Templar was jabbing and swinging his sword dangerously close to John, who swung the battered branch.  The fisherman's dexterity was surprising given his bulk but from the sweat on his brow and the wild look in his eyes, he didn't have much left.  A deft swing from the knight should have lodged into his arm but the man jumped back in time, only to follow it up with a mighty heft of the branch.  It caught the wrist of the sword arm.  A cry from the Templar was clear but there was no mistaking his anger at being hit.  The armoured glove of his right arm kept a hold of the sword but barely.  He was off-balance but with great skill brought the weapon back, rolling his wrist and carving an arc through the air.  It would have cleaved John's head had a bolt of fire from Iselle not sent him off course and the sword clattered to the ground.  Stunned, he glanced at the woman who stood in a crouched position, power swirling about her palms, prepared to unleash.  

"You mage whore!" he snarled, and with a swift movement ripped the power from her stance.  As if Iselle's hands had been joined to his by a chain, she jerked forward awkwardly, her hands lifting towards him.  She looked shocked for a moment, glancing down at her empty hands, before raising her darkening eyes back to the Templar.  Throwing a hand out, she caught the Templar off-guard with a pulse of energy.  It caught him fully in the face and he bent backwards, only to see the branch from John's almighty swing crash down into his face.  The wood was pounded into his skull and he dropped screaming to the floor where John rained more hits down on him, till all Orsino could see was a bloody morasse of red and grey.  A raw, brutal scream accompanied John's blows.  Orsino folded his arms as he watched, flinching slightly and his face falling with a sullen understanding as John turned to raining blows on the corpse's body.  A sympathetic silence fell over the glade, punctured only by the wet thumps from the branch.

"Orsino." a voice whispered next to him.  He glanced over to see that Randall and Peter had walked over to him.  Peter was watching the display with a look of horror on his face.  "The Templar is dead.  Should you stop him?"  
"Don't be a naive fool, Peter." Randall spoke, a rare moment of compassion evident in his voice.  

For a moment, all four of them stopped to watch the outpouring of John's emotions.  Orsino glanced at his charges; Peter wore a look approaching fear, Randall's face was impassive, and Iselle looked sad.  The corners of her eyes crinkled and she chewed her bottom lip slightly as she watched before turning and walked quickly away from the carnage.  As if a bubble had popped, Peter suddenly moved and turned to follow her, muttering worried words to himself.  

"Randall, please give us a moment." Orsino said softly.  

Slowly the boy turned away and walked to where his fellow apostates waited.  Orsino cast a paternal eye over his charges.  All four walked without injury and aside from being shaken, seemed alright.  Orsino could hear the flow of nervous and excited chatter from where he stood but he didn't care for what they said.  Right now, he waited patiently for John to come to a stop.  When learning of Meredith's death, Orsino had nearly collapsed with emotion but John had been there for him.  He had had scant chance for friendship within the tower whilst he was First Enchanter.  Now as they journeyed through the Free Marches, he led the three of them away from danger, or so he hoped, but he had not made friends with them.  He didn't feel he could do.  

With a final cry, John threw the branch down at the broken corpse on the ground in front of him.  Tears fell wretchedly down his face but he let them run as he stood with his hands on his hips and stared at the work he had done.  With a trembling lip, he sneered at the body before spitting on it and walking away.  Orsino watched him sit down on a rock a little way down the path and slump his head into his hands.  Unsure of what to say, he waited a few moments but slowly he walked over.  John wiped away tears from under his eyes as he approached quietly.

"We are here for you." Orsino said gently.

John rested his chin on balled hands and continued to stare at the ground, but he nodded.

"Thank you." he said, his normally confident voice faded.  There was a pause, long enough for Orsino to think that John didn't want to speak so he turned to go.  The fisherman's voice called to him, causing him to turn back.  "Will you ever forgive them?"  
"I beg your pardon?  I don't understand."  
"The Templars.  What they've done to you, and your kind.  Could you ever forgive them?"

Orsino sighed and his eyes drifted as he considered his answer carefully.  There was so much more to that answer than he had the strength to give right now.  He walked over and sat down next to John on the large stone.  The afternoon light was beginning to creep over the top of the trees as the morning clouds started to lift.

"I can forgive an individual if they ask for it with a real need for absolution.  Many a time I have seen glimpses of the people inside the armour, and often I have witnessed fragments of humanity.  Those people I can forgive but the Templars in general?  No, the fault lies at the top.  I know that it was the Chantry that fed the lies to the people, like poisoned loaves of bread."  
"What do they see mages as?"  
"A demon's puppet.  Because our power comes from the Void, the Chantry believes we are the reason that Creation has turned away from the Maker.  They also believe that we are the conduits for demons to cross over into our realm, and that we are not strong enough to resist them.  Hence being held inside a stone prison, surrounded by those who could physically deny us our birthright.  They believe that the power will corrupt us all eventually.  We are not individuals to them but a rock starting an avalanche down a hill.  One slip and the world is buried."  
"So enlightened a view." John murmured darkly.  He shivered as he looked over at the bloody mess whose limbs still lay intact.    
"But even after seeing those moments in the Templars, I was rarely left surprised." Orsino continued.  "Someone willing to stand up to their companions for the sake of their prisoners?  Those gems were the most precious, and the most scarce."  The two fell silent and Orsino took to staring at the same point John was; the former Templar.    
"You must think me a monster." the man said in a low voice, his face showing his disappointment in himself.  
"His words and actions damned him to such a fate.  Do not blame yourself.  Your actions allowed us to use our magic without fear of dampening."  
"Could one Templar really contained four mages?" John's brow wrinkled in shock.  
"I have seen it done." came the serious reply.  "Come, let us not dwell on this.  Your mind is raw and unforgiving at the moment.  We may yet be able to rescue the dwarves if they have not yet descended below.  You will see the reward of our works."

Orsino stood and turned to John, stretching out a hand to help him.  With a grateful smile, John took his hand and stood.  Orsino could feel that the man still trembled and watched as he again stared at results of his work.  His eyebrows twisted and guilt raced across his eyes, his remorse keeping his eyes fixed on the corpse.  Sighing softly and wanting to help his friend, Orsino sent a wave of arcana to the body.  He felt the sparks hiss and twist as they felt their way through the Fade to the cadaver and soon the Templar was burning brightly.  John's head tipped back slightly and his nose flared a little, but still he stared.  However, this time his forehead smoothed a little and his shoulders dropped.  The smell of roasting meat soon started to prick at Orsino's nose and he politely suggested they moved away.  He turned and walked to the mouth of the cave, halting a little as he approached the dark opening.  Pausing upon the threshold,  he listened for any sounds or signs of movement but couldn't hear anything.  A cool air emanated from the cave but it brought no signs of life.  The dwarves had obviously passed too far under the earth to send any sound back to the surface, or to hear any sounds of struggle and come to help.  He hoped this would also mean that those guarding the dwarves that toiled below would not come running.  They couldn't afford to wait too long though.

"Iselle, Peter, Randall," he called out.  The three of them looked over to where he stood.  "Search the glade for anything we can use, or gives a clue as to why the Tevinter was here."

Slowly his head turned round to catch sight of the cart.  He swallowed nervously.  Stones on the ground crunched underfoot as he slowly stepped nearer to the vessel loaded down with the most precious, and fatal, of metals.  He could only surmise from watching the Tevinter hold the material that it had been processed far below the surface, otherwise he would have died almost instantly.  It was lethal to mages.  Merely being in its presence in its raw form caused mages to die, so it was with trepidation that Orsino approached the cart.  Even having seen as he did, he was wary of its contents.

The first thing he noticed was how beautiful it was.  The blue almost fluoresced, and there was the air of song about it.  Orsino longed to touch it, to reach out his hand and drift his fingers through the grains of processed lyrium, but he knew enough of it to be mistrustful.

"So what do we do with it?" Randall's voice asked as he approached.  His eyes shone as he looked at the pile.  
"We can assume it is fit for consumption, else the Tevinter would have been killed outright." Orsino muttered.  Randall nodded thoughtfully as he mulled over what lay before him.  
"This will be worth a lot of gold." he grinned.  
"We can't take it with us." Orsino snapped, turning quickly to look at the boy.  Randall's face dropped in confusion.  
"What?" he stammered.  "This is a licence to produce gold.  We'll be rich if we take this to Tantervale."  
"And how do we get a barrow load of lyrium past the gate guard?" Orsino asked.  In truth, he was amused at Randall's naivety.  "There is no way we can take this.  The sheer impracticalities alone!  Are we to push a cart all the way to the city?" he asked, looking Randall directly in the eye.  The young mage shook his head after a moment.  "And what are we to do with it then?  As apostates, walk up to the _Chantry_ and offer to sell it?  No, we have to leave it here."  
"That is ridiculous though!" Randall protested sharply.  
"This cart has been brought to the surface to be collected by someone.  A cart will be turning up soon to ship it to the city.  This is quite clearly an illegal operation as there would have been a much bigger presence here.  When they see what has happened, they will raise the alarm with whatever shady underworld denizen they are allayed with.  If we start selling lyrium, legally or illegally, then someone is going to ask questions.  It would be like painting a target on ourselves."

Randall's lips moved as he talked almost silently to himself.  He grimaced as he realised the reality of the situation.

"Fine, but at least let us take some, Orsino."  
"Do you have something to carry it in?"  
"As a matter of fact, I do."

He stopped and pulled out a small pouch made of leather.  It was a functional affair held closed by a drawstring.  He held it out to his leader as if to seek permission.  Orsino's head nodded subtly.

"But I will touch it.  I am not prepared to let you do so."  
"Will it hurt you?" the young mage asked.  
"I presume not as we are still standing in close proximity.  We would have known by now if it was fatal.  However, if it's going to be harmful, I'll take that responsibility."

He dipped his hand into the cart and picked up a handful of the powder.  As it fell through his fingers, there was a silkiness to it, like fine sand.  The bag was filled up quickly till it was the size of his fist and he tied it securely to his belt.  It would hang behind him under his travelling cloak.  Something this precious needed to be guarded.  Not that he didn't trust the others with it, but he knew that this would be found soon enough.  It was like having a year's worth of gold around his waist, if only people knew it was there.  He could conceal it magically if he wished, but he could fall prey to simple pickpockets.  If anyone was going to get robbed as they passed through the streeets of Tantervale, then he wanted to shoulder that responsibility.  There would be someone in the city they could go to to turn this into a liquid form.  Orsino's throat went dry as he thought of the power he could wield after drinking one of those.  If they sold it as well, they could buy more staffs, more equipment, perhaps even proper accommodation.  However, they would have to be careful.  The Chantry tightly controlled access to lyrium and would pursue anyone else who meddled in it.  It would be yet another reason to be hunted in such a highly dangerous city.  Orsino hoped that there was a thriving black market in Tantervale that he would be able to gain access to.  He also needed to find more information on the whereabouts of  _that mage_.  He was dangerously aware that too much time was passing, and with every day Anders got further and further away.  Just thinking about him made Orsino's fists clench and unbidden fire magic crackled around his fingers.  Shocked at his own anger, he calmed himself down forcefully.  He knew that information procurement would be easy enough if they had the right leverage.  The powder that now hung at his waist would serve that purpose well.

"Orsino?" Peter's voice called out.  He turned to see both he and Iselle walk up.  Peter dropped another small pouch into his hands with a smile and from the chink of metal, he could only assume there were coins in it.  Opening it slightly, gold shone up at him.  A smile involuntarily broke out on his face.  
"Astounding.  Where was this?" he asked excitedly as he looked between the two of them.  
"It was in a small chest hidden in the flora.  Over on the other side of the glade." Iselle said, turning to point.  "We also found this."  She held out a small book.  He took it with curiosity building.  Flicking it open and glancing through a few pages, his eyes widened.  Pages upon pages of Tevinter scrawlings, diagrams, notes.  It was a treasure trove of magical secrets.  He would enjoy devouring this when they got the chance.    
"We need to move from this place." he announced, his voice shaking from the discoveries and exertion.  
"What about the dwarves?" Peter asked.  
"It pains me to say but we can't help them after all." Orsino told them.    
"What!?" Randall cried out.  "Then what did we stop for?"  
"We stopped because we thought we _could_ help them.  They disappeared into the underground.  We can't follow them there, into places where raw lyrium is being mined!  We don't know how many people wait in those tunnels ready to carve us into the walls.  If they had stayed up here, we could have set them free.  But no, they were sent below.  All we can do now is hope ..."  
"Hope?" came the frustrated voice of Randall.  "What is hope to us?"

For a moment, Orsino heard a different voice say those words.  One from many years ago.  Hadn't Maud decried the futility of hope?  As with all those other moments where her face arrived unannounced into his mind, he forced the memories away with a will of iron, gritted his teeth and looked up again.

"We can _hope_ that when they return to the surface they will see that no-one is here to see them.  We can _hope_ that they will take that as their chance.  We can _hope_ that at least."

Randall looked downcast at this statement but he nodded his head slightly and moved away.  Peter and Iselle still looked on.  He nodded his head with the faintest of smiles while she sighed deeply through her nose.  John walked up and joined the group.

"We've got money and we've got some answers - _hopefully_ \- in the form of that book.  We do need to move quickly though.  There's a road that leads in the direction of Tantervale so I say we follow it but off in the woods.  Whoever is coming to collect the cart will have horses to pull it back home, or come in such numbers to carry it.  I don't want to meet either.  The woods will hide us plenty enough."  
"Agreed." the First Enchanter said.  "Let us get our things and leave."


	10. Chapter 10

Behind the cover of trees whose branches swept low to the ground, the five of them stood and stared out across the fields towards the road.  The wide turnpike was not the aim of the group's desire, but the inn on the far side.  Orsino searched it keenly for threats.  He could see none.  Someone opened an upper floor window to shake out a white sheet but retreated inside quickly, leaving the window open.  Ten minutes later, he saw the same thing from another window.  There were two people working the stable that sat to the side of the building but from the way they walked about, there was too much business and not enough help.  A multitude of different size chimney stacks that sat across the roof sent several tendrils of smoke up into the cold air.   _A lot of rooms,_  he thought,  _and not enough people to help run it.  We may just be able to blend into the background here._

"One night, that's all we ask!" Randall pleaded.  He moved to block Orsino's view of the inn.  "A real bed!  Think about it!  We haven't had that since  _Kirkwall!_ "

Only Orsino's eyes moved as he looked at Randall.  He wore such an expression of hope and openness as he pleaded with the First Enchanter.  His shoulders were high with an amusing desperation, and his hands joined in supplication.  He was trying so hard to convince him.  A smile wrinkled the corner of Orsino's mouth.

"Well, my back's been hurting for about a day now." John unconvincingly chimed in with as his voice danced around.  "A good bed would set me right."  Orsino raised an eyebrow and turned to look at the man who rubbed the back of his neck and avoided a direct, but amused, gaze.  
"But there could be Templars in there!" Peter mewled.  
"Yes, there could," Randall retorted quickly, his excitement giving way to impatience to know an answer, "and there will definitely be in Tantervale.  Anyway, I see no horses of Chantry quality.  Orsino," he almost spat, whipping his head back to the Enchanter's way, "if we can't handle a simple traveller's inn, how are we going to be able to take the strain of a heavily fortified city?"

The boy had a point; this would almost be like practice.  But worry flitted through Orsino.  After two months of travelling across country, stopping for resources when they absolutely had to, being inside would feel like a prison again.  The ghost of the Gallows hovered around the frays of his mind.  Travelling had brought unmitigated freedom.  There were literally no walls to hem them in.  They could walk where they liked.  How would it be when they needed to stay in buildings again?  It seemed like a necessary evil though.  They had to travel to Tantervale, or give up the quest to rescue Cael.  And at the back of his mind, the red haze of Anders sat, festering like a sore.  The pull of finding that maleficar and making him pay for what he had done quashed all other reason.  Orsino fought to break through the angry mist that had settled.

"Orsino?" Iselle asked quietly.  
"Yes?"  
"What are your thoughts?"  
_'My thoughts?'_   he answered absently to himself, feeling himself lift out of the anger.   _'My heart agrees with all of you; that a night in a warm bed would feel like we had found treasure beyond reckoning.  But my head?  My head worries I will not be able to protect you.  As ever.'_

He turned to study them all.  Peter sat on a moss-covered log, his eyes darting pensively around the forest.  Randall and John looked out towards the inn and talked in hushed whispers, and Iselle looked between him and the view as she waited patiently for him to reply. 

"We will never be completely ready for this, Orsino." she said with a quiet authority, as she glanced at the three men nearby.  "There will always be the first time we have to face an enemy, or the first time we have to test our skills or restraint.  We can only know when we know.  It is, of course, your decision but I believe we will be fine in here."  
"I know, but there is so much more to living in society once again." he said worriedly.  
"I know of what you speak.”  _You do?_   “We would not let you down.  Our powers can be kept under control." she smiled up at him softly.

 _That is not what I meant, but thank you for trying to help,_ he willed her to know as he looked back down at her.

His brow fell as he surveyed the inn.  He knew what he needed to do.  With a worried sigh, he reached into the small leather pouch that held the money and pulled out a handful of coins.  Without saying a word, he walked and dropped the money into John's hand and silently took his bag from him, hooking it over his own shoulder.  He walked to Randall and tried to take his bag from him too. 

"Your bag, please." he prompted when it was not given.  
"What?"  
"You want to stay in the inn?  Then I'll need your bag."  With a confused look on his face, the young lad handed over the small satchel that composed his worldly goods.  Hardly a huge weight to carry, but to Orsino it would be a burden nonetheless.  "Thank you."

He walked over to Peter who held out his bag.  The boy simply stared at the floor, his cheeks blazing red and unable to meet his eye.  

"Iselle?" he asked as he turned to walk over to her.  
"No."

Her blue eyes glared pointedly at him.  Orsino was taken aback.  Only moments before she had been smiling.

"I beg your pardon?"  
"I know what you are doing and you may not carry my bag."  
"Iselle, I must.  If we are to walk into that inn, then we must be under the pretence of normality."  
"This is insanity."  
"Maybe, to you, but not to the people who run that establishment."  
"Wait, what are you talking about?" Randall asked.  
"He can't lead us into the inn, Randall." Peter's small voice carried over from where he sat down.  Raising his eyes, Orsino saw that Peter caught his eye and immediately shut it with a look of mortification.  "He has to put himself at the back and be a pack mule.  Can you not see that?"  
"No, I cannot.  Why can you not, Orsino?"  
"Because of who he is, my boy." John's deep voice calmly said.  He threw a pointed look at the young mage who still glanced around him in confusion.  
"Iselle," Orsino continued, "please, if you cannot let me carry your bag for this reason, then let me carry it for the purpose of simply helping you.  I can be a gentleman too, you know."

Her lips were drawn taut but her eyes danced, and slowly she handed her bag to him.

"The first you cannot help, but the second is your choice.  And that I respect."

The edges of her mouth curled slightly and Orsino felt an awkwardness cloud his stomach.  As he shifted the bags around on his back, he tried to ignore it and thought about what they were doing.  It may have been small but to the small band of apostates, it was a huge deal.  With a forced smile, he turned to the group.

"This is our second test.  We survived Wildervale and now we have to survive this.  It will be difficult but not insurmountable.  But please remember that it is vital, absolutely imperative, that anything you hear regarding either myself or magic be _ignored_.  We cannot bring any attention to ourselves that is unwarranted.  Challenging anyone's views on that, however unenlightened, would be tantamount to painting a target on ourselves.  One night is what you wanted, and you deserve it beyond measure.  I only wish I could do more.  But the price for us is that your nobility and your sense of justice must stay squarely inside you.  Do we all agree?"  He looked at them all pointedly and received measured nods.  "John, you'll have to lead the way." he proposed, feeling an embarrassment coursing through him that he had to suffer the indignation of reducing himself to a servant.  All for a chance of birth.

They emerged from the woods and followed the edge of a wide field, left fallow for the season.  The worn track ran alongside a tumbledown stone wall that separated it from a field where even now, farmhands turned the soil and unearthed clumps of weeds.  The weather was starting to warm but only just.  It was too early in the year for planting crops.  Now was the time for preparation.  Orsino wished for a simple life.  He wished for the chance to simply turn soil, or to tend to horses, or to look after a small herb garden.  But that was the stuff of fantasies.  As the group walked single-file along the worn path, he glanced to either side and saw what life had denied him.  The bags were starting to chafe his shoulders and he tried to shift them around to become more comfortable.  It didn't last long.

At last they reached the road.  It was not a busy thoroughfare and in the distance, Orsino could see a farm cart rolling towards them behind a slowly loping horse.  Not much traffic would mean not much business for the inn.  Another positive.  With only the slightest of hesitation, John walked straight across the turnpike and pulled open the door confidently.  The room they entered was lit well by large windows that looked out onto the road.  A wide set woman of perhaps fifty years was collecting tankards from a table and smiled at them as she walked over to the bar.  Large tables of differing capacities populated the room but only several were occupied.  From only furtive glances around, the people who sat at the tables talking quietly paid them minimal heed.  Only a quick glance over their shoulder was all the inn guests afforded them before they decided the arrivals were boring enough to ignore.  Orsino could sense no malice and, more importantly, he could see no soldiers or Templars.  The group shuffled in behind John who walked straight up to the bar and leant on it, grinning at the woman who was walking behind it.  Behind the long counter was an open door to the left of large barrels and from the smells, Orsino could only guess it was the entrance to the kitchens.  The door was up against the corner of the room and just next to it, heading away from the main room, was a dark corridor.

“Hello.” the woman said as she rounded the bar and placed the mugs on the counter.  She flashed a friendly smile to John.  
“Good afternoon, sera.  We are looking for rooms for the night.”  
“Abel?” she called loudly over her shoulder.

There was some bustling about, the clatter of a cooking pot, and some choice curse words.  Within a few moments, a burly looking man with a bald head and a long moustache wandered out, grimacing as he rubbed one of his hands.

"Always remember that metal pans are hot when they've been on the stove." he winced, trying to smile in the face of new customers.  The woman laughed quietly to herself and disappeared down a corridor next to the kitchen door.  
"My sympathies, and my thanks for your forewarning." John smiled as he leaned an elbow on the counter.  "Friend, are there rooms available?"  
"Always at this time of year.  It is low season.  And the name's Abel."  
"How much for just the one night?"

The man took the opportunity to look around at the group.  Orsino stooped his shoulders a little and hid behind the rest, keen to avoid being seen.  The man seemed to be all ease and friendliness but Orsino couldn’t help feeling there was something more.

"You want food as well?" Abel asked.  
"Naturally, for all of us."  
"A room each?"    
"If you can spare it."  Orsino's heart lurched at the extravagance but he could say nothing.  "Just for one night though."  
"Okay, food and board till tomorrow will be two gold."

He breathed a sigh of relief.  They could stand to take that hit and his mages needed it badly.  He smiled as his eyes dropped to the floor.

"But I'll need to borrow your elf for the night."

With those words, Orsino’s eyes whipped up. The group quickly fell to silence and every one of them turned to look at him.  The eyes of those he had taught in the Gallows, and practically raised, bore into him as he stared past all of them.  He had expected this but perhaps not quite so quickly.  Blood seemed to rush past his ears.  Whispered cursewords slipped from Randall's mouth but he stopped himself saying more.  The group parted slowly and Orsino was able to see the barkeep who looked at him blankly.   At least Abel was not regarding him with the outright hatred he had seen from others. 

“We may have a lot of rooms free but tonight will be busy in here.  I am short-staffed as it is.”

Orsino looked to John and saw a mild look of panic that he was trying to surpress.  He didn't know what to do and his mouth was flapping slightly as he scrambled for a response.  Meekly, and with heavy feet, Orsino stepped forward.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked quietly, keeping his eyes on the floor.  
"Whatever you’re told to do.  You’ll work in the kitchen and in here most of tonight, unless the wife has other jobs you need to do." he said, nodding around the large room.  "It’ll probably be quite busy.  There’s a lot of farms around here."  
"Whatever you need.  May I go?" Orsino turned and asked John who stirred himself into acting the part once more.  
"It gets us a room for the night.  Go where you're told." came the cold instruction.

With a brief look to John's face, that had paled ever so slightly, he nodded.

"I'll take their bags to their rooms first?" he asked in a low voice, looking up at the barkeep.   
"Follow me then."

Abel walked towards the end of the bar and headed towards the dark passageway.  He had pulled out a large metal circle from which hung many different keys of various metals and sizes.  As he walked purposely towards the stairs, he quickly sorted through them.  The stairs were boxed in and functional, no decorating style to them except a wooden hand rail and a window where the stairs switched back on itself, one half open to let in some fresh air.  A long corridor greeted them when they alighted on the landing.  Several of the doors were open, allowing Orsino a chance to glimpse the rooms they had been afforded; basic but clean and warm.  The woman who had been downstairs could be seen making one of the beds.  Abel stopped at one and unlocked the door.

"This is yours, my friend." he nodded to John.  Orsino retrieved the right bag and handed it to him as he walked in.  A mute nod of gratitude was all that was given as he slipped into the room.  

Abel carried on along the corridor, opening doors to let Randall and Peter into their rooms.  They also took their bags without saying anything, although Peter gave Orsino a smile before disappearing through the doorway.  His cheeks had flushed and he looked embarrassed but he kept quiet.  

"And for you, my lady, the corner room.  It is one of our best and gives you two windows.  One looking out across the road and the fields, and the other giving you a view of the stableyard.  I hope they don't make too much noise in the morning."

Iselle walked quickly in and couldn't keep the smile from her face as she looked around her room.  Her fingertips ran over the wooden footboard of the large bed as she passed it.  She walked to the window overlooking the stables and opened it, standing there and gazing out with a happy grin.

"Is this okay?" Abel asked.  
"It's perfect." she beamed.  
"Good.  Well, let's get back downstairs." Abel turned and said to Orsino.  
"No!" Iselle called out decisively.  The two turned back at the outburst.  Iselle composed herself hastily.  "I need my bag and I need to talk to him." she stated, nodding towards Orsino.  
"Of course, he is yours I suppose.  Straight down to the kitchen when you're done." he ordered and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Almost instantly, Iselle’s face dropped and she strode over to where he stood.

"Let me burn him for this." she growled.  Her hands had tightened into claws and she was straining to remain calm.  Orsino could almost feel the magic starting to swirl with anger around her hands.  
"No," he soothed as he raised his hands to placate her, "it is not his fault."  
"Neither is it yours!" she hissed.  "You should not be made to suffer!  He is treating you like chattel!  I'll tell John to say no, to reject the man!"  
"Iselle, you can't!  We can't ...," Orsino dropped his voice to a whisper, "we can't draw attention to ourselves.  Let him believe he can do this to me and we will walk away from here tomorrow refreshed and sated."

She stood and folded her arms, piercing him with her gaze.

"I notice you have not been given a room." she said after a brief silence.  
"Why would I?  I'm an elf.  Inns don’t accommodate us.”  
“Oh, and you’ve stayed at many inns whilst imprisoned in the Gallows?” she hissed.  
“I'll find somewhere to sleep,” he calmed.  “Don't worry about me. "   
"But I _do_ worry about you.  I ... I worry about _all_ of us.  I would hate to see any of us treated thus." 

Orsino’s face relaxed into a smile as she said this.

"Iselle, you are one of the most caring people I have ever met.  You need not worry about me.    I’ll sleep on John’s floor if I need to.  It will fit in with the servant persona.  Please believe me that I have been in far worse situations, and you all benefit from what will be over tomorrow."  
"Spoken like a true leader, Orsino." she said quietly.

An unbidden smile bent the corner of his lip.  He couldn’t deny that it was nice that someone had noticed.  For a moment he stood in silence, not knowing what to say, but as he looked at her, feelings he thought long dead started to swirl in him again.  _No,_ he realised with something akin to panic. _No, no, no._ This could not be.  He was her leader, her mentor.    

“Anyway,” he spoke softly, “I had best get back to my chores.”

He gave her a lop-sided half-smile, turned, and swiftly left the room.  With chagrin clinging to his stomach, he shut the door behind him.  In the quiet of the landing, he took a deep breath.

“I am too old for this.” he whispered to himself.

***

Throughout the afternoon, Abel never treated Orsino with anything approaching disrespect.  However, nor did he treat him nicely.  Orders were given and they were expected to be followed.  There was simply no acknowledgement that Orsino deserved anything, including effort.  Onions were pointed out, a knife given, and he was simply told to chop them.  He had never performed this task and it was with a terse _tsk_ and a withering gaze that Abel showed him.  Without mana, Orsino felt debilitated but he tried his best to do what he had been shown and with a degree of pride, and a face full of tears, he presented a deep dish full of chopped onions to Abel who took them silently.  Orsino felt his pride fall a little at the snub.  They hit a deep pan with a hiss and a wonderful aroma soon filled the kitchen.  Garlic and herbs followed before chunks of beef were fried.  Orsino became enchanted with the smells but he could not stop to admire what Abel was doing.  He had been handed a bucket of warm, soapy water and a cloth.  With an instruction to wipe all the tables in the main room, he walked through, bubbly suds slopping onto his trousers.  He cursed and tried to walk a little more carefully but inevitably spilled more down his front.  The woman, Matilda, smiled as he did so. 

“Careful there.”  
“I will try.” came the earnest response as he concentrated on his task.  His target was a table near the back of the room and he never took his eyes from it as he answered.

The room had cleared of lunchtime patrons, apart from a single group that sat on a large table near the fire.  Four or five men sat round it playing cards.  Quietly, Orsino put the bucket down, rolled his sleeves up carefully, and plunged the cloth into the hot water.  With vigour, he set about scrubbing the table.  Before long the scent of dried beer had lifted and he smiled to himself at the effort and the cleanliness of it.  The cycle was repeated with the next table and every time, he looked to see if the fireside table was going to empty.  Eventually he had cleaned all of them and still the patrons made no signs of leaving. 

“Matilda?” he asked quietly as he walked behind the bar.  “Abel has told me to clean all the tables ready for tonight but those men haven’t moved.  What should I do?  Leave it?”  
“I’d leave it if I were you.” she advised quietly, looking at him directly.  However, as she looked away, there was a look of warning that didn’t sit well with him.  “Walter won’t move from there now till the place shuts now.  He’s a hunter of good reknown and we need him.  He brings the meat in for the day and Abel lets him stay here most hours that he’s not out hunting.”  
“He’s not a gentleman then?” Orsino asked quietly, starting to clean the counter that Matilda stood behind.  
“He can be.  He can be very sweet.  But he can also be a nightmare, depends on his mood.  Tell your master to protect that sweet thing of his that you all came in with, and get her to lock her door tonight.  He can be incredibly charming.”

Orsino concentrated on cleaning off the stains of beer where tankards had stood too long.  There were so many things to take issue with in what she had said.

“Don’t scrub the bar away, Olyver!” she chuckled quietly.  It broke his concentration and it was only when a new voice sounded out next to the bar that he looked up.  He hadn’t heard anyone approach.  
“Matilda, my love, when will you leave Abel for me?” Walter leaned rakishly against the bar and sang sweetly with an open face and a wide, charming smile.  Matilda had starting cleaning the tankards ready for the evening’s influx of drinkers.  As she turned the rag inside one, she looked up at him sternly but it was a matter of moments before she smiled herself.  
“When you catch me a decent deer?”  
“What was wrong with the meat I brought into today?”  
“That goat was half starved.  There was nothing on it!”  
“It will do for a stew, will it not?  It deserves a kiss if nothing else.”

With a roguish grin, he stood up and held his arms out to her.

“Did you want something?” she retorted, leaning on the bar and staring at him.  “A drink, perhaps?”  
“Yes, actually a drink will do nicely.  An ale, please.”  Matilda turned to one of the large barrels behind the bar.  Orsino risked a glance up at Walter and found he was staring back.  There was no emotion in his eyes, no blinking, no movement.  It was unnerving.  It spiked a need in him to fight back but Orsino knew better and dropped his face back to the counter he cleaned.  The wood gleamed darkly as he scrubbed. 

“Tell me, Matilda, who was the blonde angel who arrived earlier?  Came in with a large group of travellers.”  
“She’s too good for you, Walter.  Leave her alone.”  
“I can be good for the right woman.” he flirted.  
“Ask Olyver here then.” she told him.    
“Elf, what is her name?  Is she taken?” Walter asked.  
“No, ser.  She is not.” Orsino replied quietly, shivering with disgust at the man.  He continued to clean the counter, desperate to ignore him and hoping he would go away.  Matilda was right - Iselle was far and away too good for him.  He dropped to wipe the shelves underneath the bar but Walter leaned over, grabbing him roughly by the collar and dragging him up again.  
“You did not tell me her name.” he sneered.  
“Her name is Iselle, messere.” Orsino said quickly, feigning fear to mask the anger.

He dropped the cloth quickly into the water and picked up the bucket, scuttling back to the kitchen.  The bucket was set down with a jolt on the central table in the kitchen, slopping dirty water over the surface.  He stared with irritation and reached in to grab the cloth, a sneer wrinkling his lip at the new job he had to do. 

“Go and get some more firewood.” came the blank command.

Orsino glanced up at the back of Abel’s head as his brow wrinkled.  Indignation coursed through him that the man hadn’t even turned round to give the instruction, just shouted it into the air.  The chef stared into the pan, his meaty fingers reaching to a nearby pot and grabbing a handful of herbs.  He perused the utensils that sat nearby before grabbing a large spoon and joyfully stirring the stew.  He tasted it and Orsino could see that his cheeks widened. He bounced on the balls of his toes and giggled with glee.  Whirling around, he came to a stop and the mirth disappeared almost instantly.

“Go get some firewood, now.” he told him disdainfully.

Maybe Orsino paused too long but as a pain burst against his forehead, he realised he’d made a mistake.  The sound of something clattering on stone turned his eyes and he saw the spoon, that only moments before had been in Abel’s hand, tumble across the kitchen floor.  Instinctively he reached to cover his eye but found his fingers wet.  Shock rattled through him when he looked at them and saw that they were red.  With horror, he looked back to the chef.

“You look at me that way again and you’ll be sorry.” came Abel’s low warning.  “Now go get the damn firewood.”

Orsino, the First Enchanter of one of the largest circles in Thedas, nodded his head humbly and walked out of the door into the yard beyond.  It was not the first time he had been bloodied, and it would not be the last, but somehow this one hurt more.  He again raised his fingers to check the wound, hissing as he felt the sting.  The blood still flowed but maybe a little less now.  There was no way he could heal it with magic.  Abel would wonder where the wound had gone and Orsino couldn’t risk someone finding out about him.  A humiliated sigh came from inside him and he let it out slowly through his nose, letting his eyes fall closed as he did so. 

The evening was beginning to take hold and several stars were out already, although it was clear that there would be a scattering of clouds to hide them.  He took a moment to look up.  They had been his own guides on the flight from Kirkwall.  _Ever constant protectors,_ he thought, _and yet you take the chance to hide now_.  _Shame on you._ The pause was only brief and he wrenched his mind away from what had just happened to fetching the wood for the kitchen fire.  A pile stacked high with chopped logs stood proudly against one of the walls of the yard under a lean-to roof.  He quickly retrieved some, keen to be back in the warmth of the kitchen, and ran back through the door, dropping the logs in the basket by the stove.  He started to open the oven door to stoke the fire but Abel grabbed his shirt and wordlessly pushed him out of the way.  He staggered backwards and waited. 

_… “Make sure the fire in the main room is burning well.”, … “Fetch the empty tankards.” … “Bring up a sack of flour from the cellar.”, … “Take this guest’s bags to his room.”, … “Take food to the stables.”, …_

And so the commands went till the evening came and the inn started to fill.  Every time, Orsino ground his teeth and thought of those mages who relaxed upstairs that he had pledged to protect.  Hopefully they were enjoying some well-deserved rest.  He balled his fists and choked down retorts that he wished he could make.

The room filled with people from the hills and farms all around.  Wall brackets held many candles and, along with those sat on chandeliers, the soft light gave a warmth to the room.  Over the bar, the ceiling was slightly higher so brands were used to give more light.  In the early evening, John emerged into the main room, followed by Randall.  Orsino had been taking bowls of stew to a group sat in one corner and didn’t notice them until he turned around.  John’s face fell to blackness when he saw Orsino’s own, Randall hardly any less surprised.  A quick glance was all John received before Orsino wordlessly pushed past the two of them on his way back to the kitchen, ready for more orders.  How he wished he could stop and explain it all, sit down with them and chat, but he couldn’t.  Abel had continued with his disdainful approach throughout the afternoon.  The work hadn’t been done well enough, or something not fetched quick enough, and had received other threats of violence.  Abel’s temper had caught up with him and Orsino felt one his meaty hands clip him round the head.  It was only a strong will that had kept his magic from incinerating the man.  The threat of the Templars was all too real, but the appeal was growing stronger and stronger.

Plates of food were waiting on the central kitchen table when he returned.  “Those are for the two men sitting on the small round table to the left of the door.”  Nodding his head, the plates were picked up and delivered straight to the table.  Orsino had quickly learnt how to carry many plates correctly as he deftly wound in and out of the patrons that stood nearest to the bar.  Matilda held court behind the counter as she moved from customer to customer, taking coins and dispensing ale.  Walter had continued to play cards, as she had promised he would, but he had politely refused her when she had sent Orsino over to enquire about refreshing the emptying tankards.

Orsino saw that John and Randall had taken a table in the corner of the room and smiled to himself.  They would be fine there, keeping out of the way.  Iselle and Peter arrived less than ten minutes later, talking quietly to themselves.  They walked carefully past the tables and sat down to grim smiles from the rest of the group.  John took the opportunity to wave over Orsino who walked over slowly, knowing what they would say.   

“Four bowls of stew and some bread.  And wine for the table.” he loudly ordered.

Orsino heard a small gasp to the side of him and risked a glance down to Iselle.  She could not look away from the small wound around his eye.  Small, frustrated movements gave the impression she was fighting against herself to stand up and take care of it.  Eventually she pressed her lips together hard and turned to the table, lacing her fingers and resting her chin on them, angry eyes boring through the table.  Peter looked up and he started to open his mouth to ask what had happened.  With a worried look, Orsino shook his head subtly, desperate for him not to show concern.

Wordlessly, Orsino turned around and skirted back through the tables.  As he moved, he tried to read the mood of the room.  The laughter made it seem friendly, as if this was the only place great acquaintances ever met.  The candelight lent a warm and cosy glow to the place, selling lies that it was a safe haven.  The animated chatter made it sound busy.  He knew that that was what his group would see.  He had seen how rested they looked after even one afternoon sleeping in a solid bed.  However, Orsino saw another spectrum.  Patrons’ mouths gaped openly as he passed, and commented loudly at the fact that there was _one of those_ working in the inn.  Orsino was shocked the first time it happened.  However, it turned quickly to sadness to see how ingrained the treatment of his people were.  He was a curiosity, an oddity.  Some stared with hatred, some sneered, some simply were confused.  There were the odd few who moved out of the way and showed some decency but they did so quietly as if afraid to let their fellow drinkers know of their kindness. 

The routine of collecting food from the kitchen was well known by now.  Orsino quickly gave John’s order for stew to Abel and while he was dishing up, he ran to deliver the bottle of wine and the cups.  They were received by his friends with pained smiles and he turned to go before they could engage him in strained conversation.  It was a struggle to see them sitting in close quarters and not being able to join in, he realised with a pang.  Swallowing that unpleasantness down, he fetched the loaded tray from the kitchen.  With a smile, he weaved in and out of the crowd.  He took the first bowl and placed it in front of John, a deferent nod accompanying it.  As he went to place the second bowl in front of Peter, he tried to say something but a voice interrupted him.

“Excuse me but I can’t help noticing that we have new friends in our humble inn.”

They looked up to see Walter standing there with a wide smile to greet them.  Without waiting to be asked, he swung a leg over a spare stool and sat down at the table, in between Iselle and John.  He grabbed the bottle in the middle, glanced at the label and nodded his head in satisfaction.

“My name is Walter Rolfson.” he beamed as he set the bottle back down.  “I hunt for the inn.  I’m very pleased to meet you.”  
“We’re pleased to meet you too, Walter.  This inn is just what we needed on our long travels.”  
“Where have you come from?” 

Orsino’s heart lurched as he listened carefully, silently going about his task.  Could they remember the story he had concocted?

“Cumberland.” Iselle replied.  Walter smiled at her when she spoke.  
“You’re a long way from home then.  I’m so very glad you stumbled upon this inn.”  
“We are travelling to Starkhaven.” she replied softly as her cheeks tinged pink.

Orsino quietly placed the plate in front of Randall who accepted it silently, the merest flicker to his leader’s face. 

“Thank you.” accompanied a shy smile from Peter.  Orsino played the part by nodding his head humbly and moving on.  Flicking his eyes up from his cowed head, Orsino saw that Walter’s eyes followed him as he moved to Iselle.  He very carefully placed the bowl in front of her.

“Sera Martenne.” he said gently.  
“Thank you, Olyver.” came the meek voice.  
“Would you like more wine, Sera?”  
“A little, thank you.”

Walter jumped up and grabbed the bottle as Orsino’s hand reached for it.  With a warm smile, he gestured for her cup and Iselle handed it over gently.  Orsino could feel the irritation ride through him as he watched the man serve her.  He was young, good looking, evidently charming, and was being quite attentive.  Something squeezed his insides as he set the basket of bread in the middle of the table.  He noticed keenly that Walter went on to top up the rest of the glasses.  The bottle was nearing the end when he poured the last drops into John’s tankard.

“A good bottle,” Walter said loudly to the table, “but please, let me buy you a better one.  Elf, go ask Matilda for the Antivan red.  Here is some gold for it.  It’s not every day I meet new friends.”

His smile was open and his eyes friendly as he glanced around the table, attempting to engage them all in conversation.  To Orsino, there was something artful in the way he smiled at Iselle, something false.  He didn’t know the man and perhaps it was uncharitable to cast him so low but he was wary of the new person who had placed himself at the table so readily as a friend.  He could only hope that John was as on his guard as he hoped.  As Orsino walked away from the table, he could hear the table starting to laugh.  It wrankled and he could feel the first flushes of anger pricking at his chest that he had been so quickly replaced at that table.  That should be him at the table, laughing and eating with the others.  Moving between the patrons, he glowered darkly.  A few people stepped back in disgust that he could have moved near to them and more than once, slurs were spat at him.  Pride was forced back down with a will of iron and a clenched jaw.  When he made it back to the kitchen, his head was full and his mood dark.

Which was bad for Abel who turned round to shout out another order.

_… Orsino, I can help …_

 “What?” he snapped at the demons who took their chance to whisper in his ear.  The demons had always been quickest to talk when his mood was dark.  Almost as if he was at his weakest then.  Disgust at his own weakness filled Orsino that he had been so closed-minded that they had felt that there was an opportunity.  He was normally so vigilant.  They were battered back down quickly.  He had been so engrossed up in his darkening mood, he hadn’t even noticed Abel talk to him.  The chef’s face fell to thunderous almost instantly.

“What did you say?”  The whisper of his voice was shot through with threat.  He brandished a carving knife as he walked over to where Orsino stood by the table.  The light from the candles above glinted off the spine of the blade.  Rage clouded Orsino’s judgement.  He knew he could have burned him alive right then and there in the kitchen, made him pay for what he’d done.  However, even he knew that to be found alone with a corpse was to forfeit his life, which would drag the rest of the group down with him.  No, he would play the part but Abel would suffer.  Without thinking, he sent a spark of magic out toward’s Abel’s chest.  It was only slight, designed to interrupt rather than incinerate.  It was born of frustration and anger.  He was lashing out, he knew that, and it was petty - but it felt _good_.  A wince and a sharp intake of breath sounded out nicely.  There was pain there.  He flicked his eyes up to see Abel rubbing his chest.  Orsino turned and walked out, straight to Matilda, holding the money out that Walter had given to him. 

“I have to take a bottle of the Antivan red over to Walter.” he muttered, purposely keeping his eyes low to the ground.  He feigned sadness and hope she would take pity on him.  She reached under the counter and handed the bottle to him which he gladly took and scuttled around the bar.  As he did so, Abel was emerging from the kitchen.  His skin was sallow and he was sweating slightly.  He caught Orsino’s look and swatted at him with a meaty hand.

“Get back to your job, knife-ears.” he growled, his voice ending in a wince.  
“Yes, messere.”

Abel stepped towards his wife as Orsino disappeared into the crowd.  From somewhere behind him, there was a thud and then a scream, followed by the rush and cacophony of an inn full of concerned patrons.  He arrived at the table only to see faces craning to make sense of what was happening behind him.  A cloying sense of foreboding made his palms sweat.  What had he done?

“Olyver, what has happened?” John demanded.  Orsino shook his head, looking worried.  Without thinking, he sat down at the table.  He needed to figure out if what he dreaded was actually what he had heard.  The spark was only meant to frighten the man, not _kill_ him.    
“I do not know.” he said meekly, his throat dry and rasping.  
“Stay here, my friends.  I will go and find out.” Walter soothed.  He moved off into the crowd.  As soon as he had done, heated whispers shot out across the table.

“Okay, who was it?  Who used magic?” Iselle demanded.  “Did nobody else feel it?”  
“We are going to go back to the Circle.” Peter sobbed.  
“Keep calm, everyone.” Orsino placated, even as he stood with his heart thumping against his chest.  “I’m sure everything will be fine.” 

He sat down at the table and waited for Walter to return, which he presently did so.  His face was ashen as he dropped down onto the stool.  For a moment, Orsino felt sorry for him.  He wore a look of such shock.

“What has happened?” Iselle asked quickly, her fingers resting on his forearm.

Walter stared into the empty air, his eyes wide with anguish.  Orsino felt his knees turn to liquid.  Walter didn’t have to speak to say what had happened but the hunter did anyway. 

“Abel is dead.”


	11. Chapter 11

_Orsino’s shoulders wracked up and down and his arms wrapped around his sides. His whole body shook as he fought to keep the laughter to a minimum. So desperately he tried to keep it under control but it was no use. It spilled out of his mouth in great guffaws of happiness as tears of laughter fell from his eyes. Maud pranced around the room as she beamed like a lunatic. It was one of those idyllic few days that came along as often as Stannard smiled; Maud was happy. Today was a good day. They had sat in his room and simply talked, a rare few hours off from their studies. Orsino kept reminding himself to breathe in case this was a dream. Her life had been so blue recently that this was akin to a miracle. He didn’t dare hope she was on the mend but those dangerously seductive words whispered to him from around the corners of his mind. His laughter subsided and he sat on the edge of the bed. She was finishing an energetic and comedic monologue that the two had written many years before. In secret whispers whilst their heads were buried in their books, the two had snickered and Maud had scribbled the jokes that only those two understood. Orsino had been convinced she had forgotten it but to hear her now, it was evident she remembered every single word. They had been young when they wrote it and it was terrible, but she was smiling as she performed it. That simple thing lifted his spirits to the point of ecstasy, such was its rarity, lending the script perhaps more hilarity than it deserved. He beamed at her as she came to a stop and took an extravagant bow. He roared his applause and clapped ferociously._

_“Fabulous!” he called out. “More!”_   
_“Did we ever write a sequel?” she asked breathlessly as she flopped down on the cot next to where he sat, smiling widely._   
_“Not to my knowledge. A great pity!”_   
_“That was wonderful, O. I really enjoyed it.” she admitted as she looked out over the small bedchamber where she had just performed. Her face was flushed a delicate pink and her brown hair tussled from the exertion._   
_“What made you decide to do it?” he grinned._   
_“I was thinking about it the other day during breakfast.”_   
_“You remembered every word. Impressive.” he tipped his head towards her and smiled._   
_“Well, there wasn’t very much to remember.” she smirked back at him, her eyes alight._

_For a moment, his mind went dizzy. He gripped the edge of the bed to ground him in reality. Her hand suddenly covered his, lifting it from the edge of the thin mattress. She held it tenderly and her voice dropped to a serious timbre. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and suddenly full of care._

_“You’ve been so kind to me recently, Orsino. Much more than I deserved. I know I’ve been ill. It creeps over me. I’m sorry if I’ve treated you awfully.”_   
_“I will look after you, you know that.” he whispered._

_She looked up at him and smiled again. This time a smile that he remembered from the days before the darkness. How he longed to stop time and keep this moment to himself so he could visit whenever he wanted to. This would have to stay a private memory for those days when she couldn’t smile._

_“Thank you, Orsino. For everything. Even when I can’t say it, I still feel it.”_   
_“You’re welcome.” he said softly._

_She lifted his hand and gently kissed the back of it. Her warm lips sent thunderbolts through his skin and he held his breath, willing her not to stop. But she did. With another warm smile, she gazed up at him. Without warning, she reached forward and pulled him towards her, kissing him lovingly on the mouth._

_“Maud, what are you doing?” he heard himself ask, not even realising she had stopped or he had spoken._   
_“Orsino, I need to tell you that I love you,” she rushed, “before the sickness takes me again.”_   
_“What!?” he breathed._

_His mind raced away with him and he fought to settle his heart. This was euphoria, surely, on her part. This couldn’t be. She had had these episodes of mania among the many dark days, but she had never acted in such a way. Many, many times he had wished she would but nothing like this._

_“I love you, O. My mind is clear today. That just now was a thank you for all those times when you’ve been beside me, holding me up when I’ve wanted to fall. From within, I’ve wanted to scream it at you but it’s almost like shouting through a thick fog. I have been so grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I love you – so much.”_

_She kissed him again, firmer this time, and moving her body to be nearer to him. Her hands gripped the side of his head and he felt her fingers run through his hair. His resistance was weakening. She stopped for a moment, still clinging to him. He felt her soft breath on his mouth and he stared at her, hardly daring to believe this was happening. For a long moment, all seemed like it was possible. As she moved to kiss him for a third time, something sparked in him and he responded. Passionately he kissed her back, his own hands cupping her jawline. Deftly she manoeuvred herself to be sitting across his lap, never breaking from crushing her lips against his. Acting on all those glorious thoughts he had ever had, he pulled her tightly against his own body, wrapping his arms around her and pressing her close._

_As he felt the blood racing around him, he knew things would be better. He knew this moment was the one he would think about when times were dark. As he felt her hands begin to pull at his clothes, he knew now that he would die for her. He would keep her safe._

 

 

Orsino lay on the floor of John’s bedroom and stared up at the ceiling, deep in careful thought. He had killed someone. Out of spite. He had never done that before. Many times he had wanted to so very badly, until he thought the need would reach down and strangle him, but he never had done. What he had done with Abel was only supposed to be a warning shot. The day had been a torrid stewpot of emotions that had festered and bubbled like plague sores. He shouldn’t have let it get to him – he knew that. However, it had done, and stupidly so. Now someone was dead because of him.

From somewhere nearby, he could hear the muffled wailing of Matilda, a newly-made widow. Orsino winced as he heard her again, the noise like a tailor’s pin in his heart. It was now near to three in the morning and she had wept constantly since the inn had fallen quiet. He had stayed to help with what he could but the folk that lived nearby had all rallied round to help. An elf servant was another body in the way and a nuisance – a fact that several people had sharply reminded him of. Most patrons of the inn were those who lived in nearby farmsteads and shepherd’s cottages. They had known Abel. Indeed, he had been a stalwart of their community, providing a meeting place and safe haven for many a year. Orsino closed his eyes against another crashing wave of guilt.

John turned noisily in his sleep. His nose whistled quietly until he snorted and coughed, and then settled back down. Orsino heaved another sigh as he thought over what would happen to him. He was relatively okay from the pursuing law. It would take an extraordinary stroke of bad luck for people to realise it had been he that had caused Abel’s death. It was extremely specialist blood magic that would have to be used in order to tell what had been involved, and he was fairly certain that there were none near Tantervale. Except, perhaps, in the dungeons of the Circle there. Even then, it would take a Templar being on hand and sending for said mage within hours of Abel dying for the magic to be traced back to Orsino. No, he would not be punished by any outside agency.

At least he could look forward to being on their way in a few hours. The inn in which they slept was on a tributary road that led up to the main thoroughfare from Starkhaven to Tantervale. It would take the morning to reach that road. However, it would then take almost a week to reach the city if they walked. Cael was on borrowed time as it was. The only reasonable solution was to take a cart to Tantervale but that would be expensive. He was fairly sure there would be something on which they could hitch a ride. The young mage needed their help.

That’s what Orsino told himself anyway.

The bitter taste of hunting quarry stung the First Enchanter’s mind as the truth surged through the lies that he was telling himself. He still felt the overriding need to make Anders pay for what he had started. Orsino’s lips hurt from where he pressed them together to keep the rage at bay. Another aggravated sigh, loaded with malice, was exhaled through his nose. He rolled onto his side, needing to do something, even simply move, to distract himself from his hatred. Forcing his eyes shut, he tried desperately to rest. He was exhausted but too energised to think about sleeping. He could only hope his body would override his guilt and malice and succumb soon.

Several hours of broken sleep later, he knew that it was a fruitless task. Breakfast for the inn guests would need to be started soon and he would be expected to help. He sat up and pulled his boots on, groaning quietly to himself as he pushed himself to standing. John didn’t even stir as he padded across the floor and let himself out into a hushed corridor. Many years of moving silently round the Circle gave him the skill to move down the stairs without making a sound and he emerged from the dark corridor into the main reception room.

The smell of fresh tobacco immediately hit him and before heading into the kitchen, he looked up to scan the room. Slouched down in a seat by the window, staring out over the fields opposite as the eastern sky threatened to brighten, with his boots propped up on a stool, was Walter. Lazily he dragged on a small pipe. Even from across the room, Orsino could tell he was deep in thought. Stealing quietly into the kitchen, he gave the rogue a wide berth and went to find something to do to help.

It was immediately obvious. The sink overflowed with dishes and pans that had been forgotten in the madness of the previous evening. Orsino didn’t know how to cook or make bread but he did know how to heat water and scrub dishes. It was the least he could do. As he moved across the room, he took great pains not to look at the large stove that Abel had obviously loved being at. Carefully, he removed the dirty dishes from the sink and stacked them on the table. Unlatching the door, he stole out into the yard to the small, covered well in the corner. Pulling up the water was exhausting work but he managed to get enough back to the sink. With a grunt, he hefted up the bucket and sloshed the water into the basin. Staring at it, he pursed his lips as he rolled back his sleeves. By all rights, he should have heated it first. However, after the previous night, the fact that he had not been arrested or discovered yet gave Orsino the confidence to assume that there was no-one of magical ability able to sense that there were apostates under the inn’s roof. Tiredness gave over to something akin to arrogance and the magic slipped from his fingers straight into the water. Through exhausted eyes, he suddenly realised with surprise that the water was hot. Grabbing a scrubbing cloth, he picked up the first plate and went to work.

The door swung open behind him with a slight squeak. Glancing over his shoulder, dreading that it would be Matilda, he was curious to see Walter walk straight through and into the pantry. Orsino’s eyes drew in with disgust as he looked back a few moments later to see the man emerge eating a slice of cold chicken pie. The man paused to lick flecks of pastry from his fingers, grinning to himself as he did so. Orsino turned back to the hot water shaking his head with irritation. He didn’t know what kind of arrangement the man had with the inn but it seemed wholly insensitive to rob food from a newly-made widow.

“You know, it’s a funny thing,” the young man began, calling over with a feigned air of indifference, “that you have hot water but I cannot smell that there’s been a fire to heat it, nor have you had time to do so, since you’ve only just come down from upstairs. One might wonder how it was managed.”

Orsino set down the clean plate he had been working on and turned towards the young man, wiping his hands on a towel and almost growling with antipathy. Walter took another bite of pie and chewed, never breaking from eye contact with Orsino.

“Maybe I lit the fire earlier and retired upstairs to sort my room out.”  
“Not likely.” Walter snorted.  
“I beg your pardon?”  
“Because it’s obvious you’re hiding something. Even if I hadn’t been sent to find you, you would have stood out had you stayed here much longer. One night, you can manage the act but any more than that and the façade would slip.”

Orsino was worried and he knew it showed on his face. Who was this man?

“You have been sent to find me?” he asked menacingly, leaning his head back slightly and looking at Walter askew. He reached for his mana and drew strands of it towards himself, ready for anything. He twisted it round his fingers. “Just who do you represent?”  
“A friend in Tantervale, at The Goose Inn.”

As Orsino’s face and defences dropped a little at the surprise, Walter smirked.

“Enzo has been told to seek you out. I work this road for him. My skills in hunting allow me to travel up and down it for free. I make a kill and stay at the inns in return.” he shrugged. “It is a perfect mask for being the ferryman that I am.”  
“How did you know about us?”  
“Almost from the very moment you walked in, it has been incredible to me that you have managed to fool those who live and work here.”  
“Fooled? What is this nonsense?” Orsino snapped.  
“Do you really want me to list the reasons why your story has less substance to it than a cloud?”  
“I would be quite fascinated.” he enunciated icily, leaning back against the sink and folding his arms, fixing the rogue with a steely glare.  
“You are the group’s leader – that much is obvious.” A cold chill ran down Orsino’s back. Had he been that obvious? “They defer to you, even though you have instructed them not to. When you served them dinner last night, you used ‘sera’ to refer to the girl. _Sera!_ An elf servant would never do that. They also _thanked_ you.” Walter explained, a look of disbelief clouding his face. He ate the last piece of food and brushed the crumbs from his hands. As he chewed, he walked round to where Orsino stood, shaking his head with a cocky grin as he swallowed. “Those hands have never seen manual labour, I can almost guarantee it.” he stated as he pointed at Orsino’s hands. Orsino looked down at his fingers and splayed them, inspecting the skin with curiosity. Were they really that soft? Walter continued, his voice almost compassionate. “Every time I witnessed some of the appalling behaviour towards you last night, you were sad, almost as if you weren’t expecting it. A city elf would know how their kind were treated – if they had been allowed their freedom to see it.”

Unable to stand it any longer, Orsino turned round and plunged his hands back into the sink and ignoring the stinging pain of the hot water. He scrubbed the metal pot vigorously, trying desperately to ignore a mounting tide of panic.

“I know how my kind are treated.” he growled to the water. He surprised himself with how visceral the sadness was. Up till now, he had been a mage and treated as such. Such hatred of his abilities had outweighed the disgust shown towards his body. Out here, beyond the Gallows and the Chantry, he was now an elf again. He smirked cruelly with the irony of being in the unfortunate position of being hated whichever way he turned; demon-pawn or knife-ears.

Walter walked quietly over and leant against the surface next to the sink. He crossed his arms and leaned slightly towards Orsino.

“All I am saying is that you’ve got to be more careful.” he said, much more softly this time. “You’re on the run, you’re trying to hide – that much is obvious. I only know I have to find you and bring you back to Tantervale safely. I don’t know any particulars, although I can tell I have guessed several of them.”

Orsino stayed silent and stared at the pan he was trying to clean. He was failing his group. They had not managed to move through a simple inn without being spotted for what they were.

“You say that you thought we had fooled the others?” he asked in a voice that was forced to be subdued, desperate to know.  
“Very much so. I will be surprised if you are allowed to stay much beyond breakfast though. You are outsiders and the people here will need to mourn.”

Orsino felt his cheeks burn red.

“We will leave after they have eaten then.” he said firmly. He saw no need to pretend any more.  
“I will not be very surprised if guests are told that there will be no breakfast. Matilda was the only one who could cook as well as Abel, and she will not be in any state to bake this morning. Nope, the cold cuts and yesterday’s bread from the pantry will be people’s breakfast. There will be a rush for food so make sure your group get in first. Make sure _you_ eat as well. I’m guessing you sacrificed a lot last night, including a meal. I need you to survive the trip to the city. Don’t want you collapsing on me. I’m not carrying you, you scrawny thing!” Walter chortled. As he pushed off from the sink, he clapped Orsino on the shoulder and strode off towards the main room of the inn, laughing to himself as he went.

 

 

In the end, they slunk out of the inn quietly. Orsino wanted to be gone from the place quickly and the people in the main room the next morning wore sunken eyes and gloomy looks. Matilda didn’t even show herself but instead stayed in her room. The grim duty of landlord fell to one of the stablehands and it was to him that Orsino paid his respects and told of their departure. They were told just to take breakfast, as Walter had predicted, and Orsino ate a dry bread roll with some cheese as they walked along. He had had the good sense to refill their cantinas from the well before they left, and as he swigged from one as he walked, he was very glad he had done so.

The weather had grown unseasonably warm as the morning grew on. As they walked the road towards the main highway, the sky lost its clouds and became a deep azure blue. Orsino unclipped his cloak and placed it into his bag, undoing his top button as well. It was still early spring but the day was clear and wonderful. However, he became uncomfortably hot as they walked further and further north. He was incorrect that it would take a morning’s walk and as his stomach rumbled, he reached into his bag to grab an apple that he had taken that morning from the inn. It must have been quite a bit past noon.

“Are we to broach the tollroad before evening?” he called to Walter, who walked several paces ahead. The man laughed before answering.  
“Yes, have no fear. We are perhaps half an hour from it, if that. Do you see that line of trees? That marks the junction of this road and that. There will be several traders there to sell food and drink to the travellers. We will not have to wait long before we can persuade someone to take us to the city.”  
“’Persuade’ them? You mean part with _our_ gold?” Orsino said, perhaps a little more snidely than was charitable.  
“My dear man, no. There is more to life than using gold. A little style, a little charm, and a winning smile often get you much further than a simple lump of a dull metal.” he said engagingly as he strode along.  
“You don’t care for riches then?” Randall asked him.  
“I wouldn’t say that but it won’t get you everywhere.”

The group carried on for a while in silence before Walter started to sing. Orsino’s eyes rose sharply at the sound. The man was good. Very good, in fact. As he sang, his feet were light and his chest held high.

“… _No one quite knew where she came from …_ ”

Rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth, Orsino kept his head down and walked. To his side, he heard John chortle to himself. Risking a look up to the fisherman, he saw that he looked back with a conspiratorial grin.

“The boy is young. Let him show off if he wants to.” he shared quietly.

With a soft _hrmph_ to himself, Orsino kept putting one foot in front of one another. The song soon finished to the delight of those that walked along. Iselle complimented him to which Walter seemed to walk a little taller and smile a little stronger. He seemed genuinely gracious in his gratitude, a fact that did not escape Orsino’s notice.

It was strange. Orsino couldn’t remember ever hearing singing in the Circle. He wondered why he hated the sound quite so much when by all rights, it would have been a potent symbol of resistance. The Templars would have broken up any such attempt at jollity. Much as he tried, he couldn’t bring any memories forth.

The road they walked along rose gently up towards the trees that Walter had pointed out. It levelled out to show a great view across a wide plain. A small hill burgeoning with outcrops of rocks and trees sat far away to the right and the afternoon sun caught it fully, lighting up the trees and rocks in burnished bronze. It leant a majesty to the countryside and Orsino smiled at it, despite himself. The crossroads on which they found themselves was shaded by tall trees that shot up proudly towards the sky. The wind blew pleasantly through the leaves to create a cool oasis that Orsino welcomed as they stepped out of the heat. He could see that the large road they had been walking towards was wide and well made, packed with stone and loose gravel. Carts could pass each other comfortably on their way to and from the city. _Good,_ he thought, _the travel will be fast._ On the corners of the crossroads sat traders with their carts, plying their wares to those that passed and stopped in the cool of the shade. Even now, there were some that had stopped to refresh themselves.

“Ah, excellent.” he heard Walter say. The man studied each of the wagons first, casting a keen eye quickly across all of them before striding across to one on the far side. Randall, who had been walking next to him, followed with a spring in his step. The group came to a slow stop next to where Orsino stood. John dropped down onto a small wooden bench beside the road.

“This heat.” he moaned, wiping his face and neck with a scarf. Orsino could hardly dare to disagree and he stood in the shade of a large tree, taking a deep draught from his canteen and taking pleasure in the cooling breeze that came across the fields on either side of the road.

Iselle and Peter had drifted off excitedly to a nearby stall where an eager trader welcomed them with a wide smile. Before long, he had enthusiastically looped a long necklace over Iselle’s neck, who giggled as she tried to duck from it. Peter smiled as well as he picked up a trinket to inspect it. Orsino watched them laugh together and turned to see Randall on the far side of the crossroads, avidly listening to Walter.

“John, I need your opinion on something.” Orsino prodded carefully as he looked to where all three of his charges stood. He would take advantage of the moments of confidence with the fisherman.  
“Go ahead. I am always listening.”  
“Am I wrong to take them to Tantervale?” he asked. John drank water from his own canteen as he thought on the answer. He swallowed, look at Orsino and shrugged. “I feel weighed down that I am leading them to their doom. That it is all my fault that they will meet some terrible fate, even though that palpably hasn’t happened yet.”  
“You gave them the choice back in my kitchen. If they wish to follow you, you cannot then feel guilty that they are doing exactly that.”  
“They deserve more days in the sun than those I can give them.” came the suddenly serious reply.  
“Orsino, they are young. They have plenty of days ahead of them in which to seize their glory.”  
“But for how long? Tantervale is at the end of that road.” Orsino said forcefully as he jabbed a pointed finger towards the track that led to the city. He could feel the tension creep into his own voice. “I need to tell them to go.”  
“I fear if you are to tell them again that they can leave, they will start to think you do not _want_ them around. They are with you. You have to stop thinking of them as your children that you have raised and start thinking of them as people in their own right.”  
“What?”  
“They may have been raised under the roof of the Gallows,” John whispered, “but here they are able to make the choices they never were allowed to before. That is something that you have given them.” Orsino started to feel irritation at the sense John was speaking. “Of _course_ they gravitate towards you. They have only known you as their leader. But you are not their _father_ , and they are not your _children_. Something, I have thought on the short time I have travelled with you, that I wonder if you are ready to relinquish.”  
“I was always their leader, first and foremost. I don’t know how to be anything else.” he told the fisherman. “But how do you move from a position of intense responsibility to one of … nudging and prodding in the right direction?”  
“You trust in them as people, I think is the clichéd answer.” John grinned. “You have taught them well. Now trust in what skills you have given them.”

Orsino took another swig from his canteen and mused over what John was saying. He knew that every word was true – he had to let them go at some point. It wasn’t a time for saying goodbye but maybe a time for relaxing the rigid fear that overhung him always.

“I will try.”  
“Maybe now is not the time though.” John said with muted panic.

Orsino felt the man tense and saw that his face had dropped to white. Following eyes that were fixed with fear, Orsino felt his own body recoil. Riding slowly through the crossroads on two magnificent destriers were Templar knights. They sat resplendently and slowly looked about them as they drew into the shaded idyll. He flicked his eyes quickly to where his mages were. Iselle and Peter had drawn themselves closer together and were glancing nervously in his direction, silently and desperately seeking instruction on what to do. With the smallest of movements, Orsino hoped that the shake of his head was enough to warn them not to do anything. Randall had moved to place Walter in between himself and the Templars, trying to hide behind the taller of the few men he and Walter talked to. A flash of his eyes told Orsino all he needed to know; Randall was calm and ready to react. Pride washed through Orsino’s mind to see the level-head that was prevailing.

He watched as the Templars glanced around them, heedless of the still that had grown over the stalls there. The woman with close-cropped, brown hair pulled on the reins of her horse and guided it over to the trader that Walter and Randall were at. Orsino’s fingers gripped the edge of the bench tightly as he locked eyes with Randall. The boy carried on listening to the conversation Walter was having, laughing at the same moments the hunter did, all the while maintaining a keen eye on the knight that sat perilously close by. Though Orsino could not hear the conversation she was having, it was obvious she was asking for a drink as the owner suddenly stirred into action, producing a mug of something. The Templar reached down from on top of the horse and took it, smiling her thanks before downing it quickly. Another was provided quickly for her companion who also received it with a grateful smile. A quick flutter of conversation had he and the trader laughing and he too quickly drank the proffered drink. More words before the trader pointed over to where Orsino was sitting. Ice ran down his back as the horses were nudged into slow action, wheeled about and moved slowly closer. The thud of their hooves echoed deeply in him. His heart answered the call as it beat loudly in his chest.

Orsino fought to keep all thoughts of magic away from his head. Any flicker and their journey would be over. He sat back on the bench and tried to feign the appearance of calm, looking for all the world as if he was supposed to be there. The horses slowly drew up and threw their heads down into a large trough of water that sat near to the end of the bench upon which the two of them sat. Orsino hadn’t even noticed it was there. He risked a glance towards the two beasts who drank noisily. They were less than a few feet away. Orsino’s eyes skittered over the Knights and they settled with disgust on the flaming sword emblazoned so noticeably on their chest. _A symbol of mercy indeed_ , he snorted. Slowly he risked a look further upwards. The armour shone as it should have done, the horses groomed to perfection, and the riders exuded the same arrogance he had always seen. From deep within him, a growl almost erupted and he choked it back down, coughing as he thumped his chest. The two Knights glanced over at the sudden sound. There was no death, no fiery demons, so they returned to their conversation. A humble elf was so far below their sphere of reckoning that even if he had been choking, he doubted it would have raised much compassion within them. Hatred flared at their lack of sympathy and their total conceit.

Before long, the knights’ patience had worn off and they tugged the reins of their chargers, pulling them reluctantly away from the small well of water. As the female knight moved her horse round, the hooves moved very close to where Orsino sat. She glanced down to make sure he wasn’t being trampled and nodded in a friendly apology as he moved his feet out of the way quickly. Glancing up at the knight who sat so high above him, he grinned and waved his hand in a gesture of genial indifference. She turned quickly to her companion, resumed their conversation and moved the horses towards the road to Tantervale. Within moments they had moved from the crossroads and away from Orsino. His shoulders visibly sagged with relief and he sighed out the tension he had been holding.

“They didn’t even notice us.” he said to himself in quiet victory. Peter and Iselle walked quickly over now that they were free to do so. “You did well,” he praised softly. They both smiled down at him as they sat down on the ground next to the bench.  
“Well,” said Walter’s voice as he strode over, “I have secured all of us a place in that trader’s cart. He expects another to be here soon which will replenish his stall and continue on into Tantervale. You are welcome.” he said, bowing with a flourish. Orsino, still feeling slightly tense, could not feel so animated and bridled at the relaxed air of the man. He had to remind himself that Walter had no reason to know why the past few minutes had been anxious.  
“And what price?”  
“No charge.”  
“You have secured six of us free passage into the city?”

Almost defensively, he could feel disbelief creep into his mind. This seemed too good to be true. Was there more to it than this? Had Walter sold them out? Would he and the trader share the profits from the capture of four apostates?

“Calm yourself, my dear man.” grinned Walter. “Your face fell so perfectly, I’m not even sure you realised it was happening. I have paid.”  
“You have paid?” Iselle asked. “How?”  
“My sweet lady, as I have told you, gold is not the only currency. He is a meat vendor. I spied it as soon as I set foot here. I have told him I would be able to secure the carcass of a most prized rare deer. I happen to know of a spot where they drink. We will have to stop for maybe four or five hours while I disappear but it will more than pay for the ride.”  
“You would do that? For us?” she asked again with a smile.  
“Anything for my friends.” he said warmly as he looked down at her. There was a timbre to his voice that belied an openness and vulnerability Orsino had not seen yet. As his eyes looked at the two of them, a strange light-headedness came over him and he looked away quickly, not wanting to acknowledge it.  
“Thank you, Walter.” he said as he forced himself to look up at the man. “That is most kind.”  
“I am a most loyal friend.”

As Walter sat himself down on the grass next to Peter and Iselle, and Randall quickly joining them, Orsino watched them talk. Randall whispered something to Peter who looked at the new man quickly to confirm what Randall had just said. With a knowing smirk, Walter nodded slowly. The low murmurs were ones of easy confidence. Orsino marvelled at how quickly the huntsman had managed to achieve this intimacy. _I led them out of Kirkwall and already they are with you,_ he sighed. They were finding their feet in the world and making friends. He found himself contemplating a life in the future when he would not have to lead them. Indeed, when he may not have them even with him. That worried him greatly. He loved them for sure, but how long would he be able to keep them with him? To keep them safe?

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have taken liberties with places, both names and descriptions, because as of yet, there isn't much about the geography of the Free Marches except the major settlements. Bioware, forgive me if I'm wrong!


End file.
